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MEMOIRS, MISCELLANIES 
AND LETTERS 



OF THE LATE 



LUCY AIKIN 



IXCLUDES'G 



THOSE ADDRESSED TO THE REV. DR. CHANNINQ FROM 1826 TO 1842. 



EDITED BY 



PHILIP HEMEEY LE BEETON 



OF THE INNER TEMPLE. 




LONDON: 
LONGMAN, GEEEN, LONGMAN, ROBERTS; & GREEN, 

18G4. 



-?.l\^OC,f 



•Ai 

1 % 6 



PREFACE. 



The following pages comprise unpublislied Essays 
and Memoirs written by the late Miss Aikin, and 
also some of her Letters : by far the larger part 
of these are addressed to the late Eev. Dr. 
Channing, with whom she corresponded for nearly 
twenty years. It is beheved that, besides the value 
which belongs to these letters from their leading- 
topics, the literature and pohtics of a stirring 
period interspersed with anecdotes of the writer's 
distinguished contemporaries, a peculiar interest 
wdll be found in many of them at the present 
crisis in the history of the United States. 

A Memoir of Miss Aikin is added. Her inmost 
thoughts, convictions, and matured opiniohs on all 
important subjects, are so completely disclosed in 
her own writings in this volume as to render it 
unnecessary to present more than a brief record 
of the incidents of her life. 

London: October 1864. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Memoir of Miss Aikin ix 

Memoir of Miss Benger 1 

Eecollections of Joanna Baillie 7 

Old Times : a Dialogue 11 

How Character is formed 21 

On tlie Spirit of Aristocracy . . . . . .29 

Example and Precept 39 

Envy and Pity r 47 

Sorrow and Anger 49 

Doubt 51 

Motives 54 

Frankness . 56 

Tempters 57 

Popular Fallacies 58 

Words upon Words , . . 61 

LETTEES. 

To Mrs. Aikin 81 

„ Mrs. Barbauld 82 

„ Dr. Aikin 85 

„ Mrs. Barbauld 88 

„ Mrs. Aikin 89 

„ Dr. Aikin 93 

„ Mr. Edmund Aikin 96 

,, Dr. and Mrs. Aikin 115 

„ Mr. E. Aikin 117 

„ Her Niece 119 



Vm CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

To Mrs. Taylor 124 

„ Mr. Taylor 136 

„ Mrs. Taylor 138 

„ Mrs. MaUet -149 

„ Mr. and Mrs. Mallet 150 

„ Mr. Mallet 152 

„ Mrs. Mallet 153 

„ Mr. and Mrs. Mallet 157 

„ Mr. MaUet 160 

„ Mr. and Mrs. Mallet 167 

„ Mr. MaUet 169 

„ Mr. and Mrs. MaUet 173 

„ Jerom Murch, Esq 175 

„ The Rev. Dr. Channing 180 



MEMOIR, 



Lucy Aikin was the daughter of John Aikin, M.D. 
She was born at Warrington, where her parents then 
resided, on November 6, 1781. Her mother was Martha, 
daughter of Arthur Jennings, Esq., of Harlington, in 
the county of Bedford, who was her husband's first 
cousin. Miss Aikin's grandfather, the Eev. John Aikin, 
D.D., had been first Classical and afterwards (as suc- 
cessor to Dr. John Taylor, the learned author of the 
'Hebrew Concordance') Divinity tutor in the Academy 
established at Warrington in 1757. Through the marriages 
of both her father and grandfather with members of 
the Jennings family. Miss Aikin was descended from 
Sir Francis Wingate, of Harlington, who married the 
Lady Ann Annesley, daughter of the first Earl of 
Anglesey. Perhaps no provincial town in the kingdonfi, 
certainly none of its size, possessed so refined and cul- 
tivated a society as Warrington, when it was the seat 
of the Academy.* Miss Aikin, however, was too young 

j * An interesting account of Warrington Academy and its worthies 
Ihas been written by Dr. Kendrick of that town, and scattered notices 
jof most of the alumni of that institution will be found in the 
I* Monthly Repository.' 



X MEMOIR. 

to benefit by it, as she was only three years old when 
her father removed to Yarmouth, where he practised | 
medicine for several years. She has written of herself : — 
' The earliest event which dwells in my recollection was 
a journey. In those days it was indeed an event. I 
had just completed my third year, when my father 
decided on a removal from Warrington to Yarmouth, in 
Norfolk. My grandmother, her maid, my little brother, 
and myself, were packed in a post-chaise ; my father 
accompanied us on horseback. It was Christmas week, 
the snow deep on the ground ; the whole distance was 
two hundred and forty miles across the country, and we, 
were six days in accomplishing it. The last night we^ 
arrived at my aunt's, Mrs. Barbauld's, house at Palgrave,] 
where my grandmother remained behind ; she died in [ 
a few days of the cold and fatigue of the journey.' 

Miss Aikin has also left the following reminiscences of 
her early days : ' As my father removed from Warrington 
when I was only three years old, and although I still 
retain some distinct recollections of it, and of personsj 
whom I knew there, I am not able clearly to trace any. 
part of my after character to impressions stamped on 
my mind at this early period. One circumstance, how- 
ever, rests strongly on my memory. My father's mother,', 
who lived in the house with us, made some attempts^ 
to teach me to read ; the extraordinary precocity of my,, 
aunt and of my eldest brother had perhaps rendered- 
her unreasonable in her expectations of progress ; she 
called me " Little Dunce ; " the reproach sank deep, 
and its effect was certainly unfavourable; it did not 
rouse me to further exertion, for I had already done 



MEMOIR. XI 

tny utmost, and it filled me with a sense of incurable 
jdeficiency. How soon may the tender spirit of a child 
|be broken, and its faculties permanently dulled by such 
treatment ! 

' I was in little danger, however, from this source. My 
Trandmother died on our journey from Lancashire, and 
[ had small discouragement to encounter from other 
quarters. If slow at my book, I was quick, almost to 
I wonder, with my tongue ; it was the report, long after, 
3f a lady who visited in our house at Warrington, that 
by voice was always heard in it, and that my papa 
jDever checked me, because he was so fond of me.' 

Although Lucy Aikin may not have been as precocious 
IS her aunt, Mrs. Barbauld, who could read with ease be- 
fore she was twenty months old, it is certain that she did 
not long deserve the reproach of being a 'little dunce.' 
iHer father thus writes of her : ' Lucy has not been well 
lately, and I should be sorry to have verified in her the 
aying, "So wise, so young, do not live long." I must 
nticipate her mother in telling one story of her sense, 
^^e were talking of Cadmus, and I was saying I was 
ot certain whether he lived before or after the Trojan 
ar ; when this chit of six years old decided the matter, 
y observing that she had heard her brother Edmund 
ead in Pope's " Homer " about a son of Cadmus fighting 
Against the Trojans.' 

The next event which left a lasting impression on her 
bind was meeting her father's friend, John Howard, and 
of this she began to write to a friend shortly before her 
decease : ' Several months ago you asked me whether 
I had not seen Mr. Howard, the patriarch of English 



Xll MEMOIR. 

philanthropists ; I answered that I had, and that, eight years' f 
child as I was, I retained the most distinct recollections | 
of his person, his manners, and his interesting conversa- 
tions with us children, to whom he was ever full of 
kindness. Once recalled to recollections thus faithfully 
cherished during the whole of a long life, it began to 
dawn upon my perception that the world had not yet 
learned all, or nearly all, that it ought and would be! 
glad to know of that ever-memorable man ; that I myself P 
must be now nearly, if not quite, the last survivor of 
those who had beheld him with living eye, and that I 
could still dictate at least, to those better able to hold 
the pen, some few anecdotes which the true lovers of- 
virtuous fame would not willingly let die.' ; 

This intention was, however, never fulfilled. The' 
letters of her father and aunt contain some mention of^ 
the great philanthropist, and tend to explain the cause' 
of the unfounded imputation cast upon that good mani* 
of ill-treating his son, as no doubt any restraint placed* 
upon him was occasioned by the unfortunate conditionf 
of his mind, and also refute the statement that the^ 
insanity of young Howard was the result of his earlyl^ 
dissipation — it is clear that it was an hereditary disease, f* 
Dr. Aikin thus wrote in 1783: 'Mr. Howard was with! 
us last week, and it gave us great pleasure to see him in- 
good health, and full of his usual activity; though it- 
is evident that the thought of his son continually comes 
across him and checks his flow of spirits. Mrs. Jennings 
has written to show that there was a strain of insanity in^ 
Mr. Howard's family.' 

Mrs. Barbauld wrote in 1787 to Dr. Aikin, who was 



MEMOIR. Xui 

I then engaged in writing a notice of Mr. Howard — ^I 
. suppose you know that young Howard is quite disordered. 
I The first time he showed any evident symptoms of mad- 
j ness was at Mr. Whitbread's ; Miss Whitbread was making 
tea, and he sat by his uncle Leeds. " Pray," says he, " is it 
I possible to mix a quantity of arsenic sufficient to kill a 
man in a dish of tea ? " "I suppose it may," replied Mr. 
Leeds. Upon this he started up, threw his dish of tea upon 
the floor, and said Miss W. had attempted to poison him.' 
On another occasion Mrs. Barbauld wrote— ' My dear 
brother, you must write the character of Mr. Howard: 
that you are taking care of the fair fame of your friend, 
and rescuing his memory from the scandalous imputation 
thrown on it in the Magazine, I rejoice. I was thinking 
to write to exhort you to do this when I heard that he 
jhad left you his papers.' 

, On reaching Yarmouth, Dr. Aikin at once entered on 
the active discharge of his profession. His daughter thus 
describes her early experience of her new residence : ' The 
arrival of a new physician, already a writer of some 
distinction, of polished and unaffected manners, and 
endowed with powers and with tact which rendered his 
conversation attractive and acceptable to all, was an event 
of no small importance in the town of Yarmouth. His 
speedy popularity was reflected upon all the members of 
liis family, and upon none more strongly than on the little 
rosy, laughing, chattering girl of three years old. I was 
soon in danger of being totally spoiled with flattery; 
nothing indeed could have saved me but the good sense, 
|the firmness, the parental afiection well understood of my 
excellent mother. She taught me what flattery was, and 
JBtrongly warned me against being led away by it. 



xiv MEMOIR. 



*Tlie lesson was doubly painful; it showed me that' 
those who knew me best were aware that I was far from 
deserving the praises lavished upon me by strangers, and 
it gave me the impression that these most agreeable 
strangers were guilty of the horrible offence of telling fibs. 
I bore the shock pretty well, however, and was the better 
for the warning. Still my little heart luould beat with 
triumph when the Kev. Dr. Cooper* withstood, I know 
not how long, the impatient summonses of three grown 
ladies to the quadrille table with the answer, "I had 
rather talk with this child." To confess the whole truth, 
I have still a kind of tenderness for the first man that ever 
flattered me. 

^One circumstance, wholly overlooked in its moral 
bearings even by parents vigilant as mine, tended to pro- 
duce in me a settled conviction of my own superiority to 
those around me, which I feel to have been permanently 
injurious. This was the constant attention paid to pre- 
serving my speech free from the vulgar and ungrammatical 
dialect of the place. My own language and pronunciation, 
I was taught, were right; those of the children my com- 
panions were, of course, very ivrong, and I indulged in a 
truly Pharisaical spirit of self-satisfaction in the com-; 
parison. Could it have been foreseen that I was finally tc 
leave Norfolk at so early an age, it might have beer 
better to pass over a few provincialisms, caught from play- 
fellows or servants, than to call forth such sentiments 
but after all, is not this the difiBculty which meets us a1 
every turn in moral as well as intellectual training, tc 

* The rector of Yarmouth, father of the eminent surgeon Sii 
Astley Cooper, Bart. 



MEMOIR. XV 

teach the young and ardent spirit, full of the love of 
excellence, and sanguine in its hopes and anticipations of 
its own proficiency, to look with due indulgence on the 
defects of others ? To be " only of itself a judge severe " 
is the last perfection of a pure and noble spirit. Candour, 
the virtue of the wise, is little to be looked for in youth. 

' At the age of six, I was sent for one quarter to a day- 
school, while my mother, my able and indefatigable in- 
structress, was visiting her relations in London. Many 
new, and some durable impressions were made upon me 
here. I soon discovered that I was far beyond my school- 
fellows of the same age. Lessons which occupied them 
half the morning I would learn in a few minutes, and my 
reading was incomparably better— a new ground of self- 
conceit ! I likewise found myself indulged and flattered 
exorbitantly by my governess ; but without then under- 
standing her selfish views in this conduct, I had a kind of 
instinctive distrust of her, mingled with a sense of con- 
tempt, which effectually preserved me from her seductions. 
One day I had, I know not how, so offended her, that she 
inflicted on me a very slight box on the ear. " That did 
not hurt," cried I. This was thought saucy, and brought 
me a second box, which I had the wit to receive in silence. 
My speech was not sauciness, however; but only an 
ill-timed display of the stoical fortitude which I had been 
taught to pride myself in practising on all occasions. 
This experiment, by showing me that I was understood 
neither by my governess nor by the other children, who 
all laughed at me, caused me to wrap myself up more 
closely in my shell of self-importance. 

'A different lesson was stamped upon me thus. My 



XVI MEMOIE. 

governess, with much whining, sighing, and casting up of 
her eyes, made known to the young ladies that a poor 
girl, her niece, who had sometimes been admitted to say 
her lessons with them, had actually been seen, such was 
the distress of her family, walking without shoes and 
stockings ; and she invited them to make a small collec- 
tion for her benefit. " I have no money," cried I, " except 
my jpretty sixpence " (a newly-coined one.) " And I am 
sure," my governess replied, with an odious twinkling of 
her eye, " that you will have the greatest delight in giving 
your pretty sixpence to poor Mary Wright." I stood 
aghast, never having contemplated the bare possibility of 
either spending or giving away a 'pretty sixpence, but 
there was no help; I was compelled to produce the 
precious piece, praised for my amiable alacrity, and sent 
back to my place bursting with indignation. I felt myself 
diddled, and from that day to this I have hated collectors 
of subscriptions — those strainers of the qualities of mercy. 
Let such as desire to awaken in children the virtue of 
charity, consider a little how far the nature of the distress 
is level to their comprehension, the object one likely to 
awaken their sympathy, the sacrifice such as may reason- 
ably be required of them, and, above all, let their own 
motives be free from all suspicion; for even childhood 
will suspect when its anger has been excited. Yoimg as 
I was, I remember thinking that my governess should 
have given shoes to her own niece herself, instead of 
begging from us. Some time after I was taken to visit a , 
poor family who were going to make their dinner on a 
single turnip. How eagerly did I cast my little store, to 
the last half penny, into the mother's lap ! But then I 
saw the distress, and no one prompted my bounty. 



MEMOIR. XVU 

*Tlie utmost vigilance will not always preserve an 
innocent child from contact with those who are corrupted. 
I met with one whose precocious wickedness still surprises 
me — it did me no harm, however; I felt only disgust and 
horror. She was fortunately detected in shameful false- 
hoods, and our acquaintance dropped. One memorable 
day, my brother George, several years older, seized and 
devoured half of a tart destined for the supper of us two 
little ones. Fired at the injury, I ran with the fragment 
into the presence of papa and mamma, and denounced the 
offender in most emphatic terms. " You should be willing 
to give your brother part of your tart," said my mother. 
"But he did not ask us," I replied— "he took it;" and I 
still think that the distinction was just, and that his action 
ought to have brought him, and not me, the reprimand. 
But how many fold was I compensated when my father, 
who had listened with great attention to my harangue, 
exclaimed, " Why Lucy, you are quite eloquent ! " ! 
never-to-be-forgotten praise ! Had I been a boy, it might 
have made me an orator ; as it was, it incited me to exert 
to the utmost, by tongue and by pen, all the power of 
words I possessed or could ever acquire — I had learned 
where my strength lay. 

' There are none among the impressions of my child- 
hood which I recollect with such unmingled satisfaction 
as the strong love of nature awakened in me with the first 
dawnings of sensibility. In our long snowy journey out 
of Lancashire, nothing so stimulated my imagination as 
! the long lines of blue hills which arose from time to time 
in the distant horizon. My lot was cast among the plains, 
and I never again beheld this appearance till I revisited 

a 



XVlll MEMOIB. 

Lancashire at the age of nineteen, and I then hailed it 
with the rapture of a lost delight recovered. 

*My first view of the ocean from Yarmouth jetty filled 
my little bosom with sentiments too big for utterance, and 
the sea was my never-failing source of wonder and delight 
during all the years that I dwelt beside its murmurs. 
The land indeed had few charms at this spot to attract the 
eye or move the fancy — a flat, barren, sandy down, ex- 
tending to the beech, was our daily walk ; but so much 
the keener was my delight when we accompanied my 
father in his professional drives through the shady lanes 
of rural villages on the Suffolk side. He was an admirable 
observer of nature — not a plant, not a bird, not a wild 
animal, escaped him ; he knew them all, and taught his 
children to know and love them too. 

' This interest was inexpressibly exalted by Mrs. Bar- 
bauld's prose hymns, which were taught me, I know not 
how soon. Her " Early Lessons " had prepared the way, 
for in them too there dwells the spirit of poetry ; but the 
hymns gave me the idea of something bright and glorious, 
hung on high above my present reach, but not above my 
aspirations. They gave me first the sentiment of sublimity, 
and of the Author of all that is sublime. They taught 
me piety.' 

From this period we possess no other auto-biographical 
notes, but what may be gathered from Miss Aikin's 
letters. 

Dr. Aikin resided in Yarmouth until 1792, and then 
settled with his family in London, where he successfully 
practised as a physician until his failing health compelled ■ 
him to abandon his profession in the year 1797. He then 



MEMOIR. XIX 

removed to Stoke Newington, and devoted the remainder 
of his life to literature. Of the many elaborate, elegant, 
and useful works which he published, none has had so 
wide a circulation as the 'Evenings at Home,' written 
by him in conjunction with his gifted sister, Anna Letitia 
Barbauld. It still keeps its place in the juvenile library, 
notwithstanding the profusion of books which have since 
been written for the purpose of rendering knowledge 
attractive to the young. Miss Aikin lived with her 
parents at Stoke Newington till the death of her father, 
in December 1822. He had carefully cultivated the talent 
which she had early displayed, and her literary attain- 
ments far exceeded those which at that period usually fell 
to the lot of her sex. The best French and Italian 
authors were familiar to her, and she read the Latin 
classics with facility. Up to the last few weeks of her life 
she retained her relish for the literature of which in her 
earlier days she had been a diligent and delighted student. 
Her father's studies were chiefly historical and bio- 
graphical, and this naturally guided the course of his 
daughter's reading. Her first efforts in writing were in 
the way of translation. The English version of the 
'Adventures of Eolando,' so long popular with the young, 
was from her pen. She was an author from her seven- 
teenth year ; many articles in reviews and magazines, and 
in the * Annual Eegister,' were hers. In 1819 she pro- 
duced her first historical work, ' Memoirs of the Court of 
Queen Elizabeth.' The subject was happily chosen — a 
female reign was fitly illustrated by a female pen. The 
plan comprehended the private life of the queen, and the 
domestic history of the period ; biographies and anecdotes 



XX MEMOIR. 

of the principal families who formed her brilliant court, 
and notices of the manner, opinions, and literature of the 
age. The author had prepared herself for the work by 
careful research into the ample materials which the 
memoirs and letters of that time furnish ; they were skil- 
fully condensed and combined, so as to afford an animated 
picture of England in a reign which Englishmen have 
always contemplated with pride. Two similar works on 
the reign of James I. and Charles I. followed. Miss Aikin 
published biographical memoirs of her father and of his 
sister, Mrs. Barbauld. Both may be regarded as works of 
filial piety ; for her aunt shared with her father in the 
reverence and affection with which she regarded the union 
of virtue and talent. The cast of her own mind fitted 
her better for sympathising with the strong practical sense, 
the liberal view^s, and the literary diligence of her father, 
than with the sensibility and poetical elegance of her 
aunt. Her own principal poetical works, 'Epistles on 
Women,' is a specimen of that moral and didactic poetry 
of which Pope had given the model — terse and compact 
in language, and smooth in versification, but not aiming 
at the higher qualities of imagination or invention. The 
smaller poetical pieces, some of which appeared in the 
* Athenaeum ' edited by her father, are marked by elegance [ 
and fancy. She addressed a consolatory poem to Mont- i 
gomery, who had been deeply wounded by the ridicule 
thrown upon his ' Wanderer of Switzerland.' The death ( 
of the Eev. Gilbert Wakefield called forth a poetical 
tribute from her pen, in which justice is rendered to his 
uncompromising integrity and public spirit. His daughter 
was her most intimate friend, and afterwards became the 



MEMOIB. XXI 

wife of her brother, the ' Charles ' of Mrs. Barbauld's 
'Early Lessons.' Miss Aikin had also, in 1814, published 
a work of fiction, ^Lorimer; a Tale,' the incidents of 
which have been appropriated, without acknowledgement, 
by a popular modern writer of novels. 

Her life at Stoke Newington was passed in great quiet- 
ness. In addition to tending her invalid father, her chief 
occupation was in writing and study ; of literary society 
at this period she had little. The regularity of her life 
was occasionally diversified by visits to friends at Norwich 
and elsewhere. At this city she had the great advantage 
of an intimate acquaintance with the family of Mr. and 
Mrs. John Taylor, both of them accomplished and con- 
genial. To the latter are addressed some letters, which 
will be found in this collection. \\'ith their children, 
distinguished in various ways, she continued on intimate 
terms. Seldom have so many of one family attained dis- 
tinction : Mr. John Taylor, the eldest son, was the 
eminent mining engineer and geologist; Eichard and 
Arthur both distinguished antiquaries ; Edward, the 
Grresham Professor of Music, was a scientific musician — 
his lectures were very able and interesting, and remarkable 
for the beauty of their style. Mrs. Austin's admirable 
translation of Ranke's * History of the Popes,' and her 
original works, are well known and appreciated. For 
Mr. William Taylor of Norwich, no relation, however, of 
Mr. John Taylor, she had a great admiration. A dis- 
criminating notice of him will be found in a letter to 
Mr. Murch of Bath. William Taylor's very original work 
j on ' English Synonyms ' deserves to be more widely known 
i than it is. Subsequent writers on the same subject have 



XXll MEMOIR. 

largely made use of its contents, and generally without 
any acknowledgement of their obligations. 

Of the visit Miss Aikin paid to Edinburgh in the winter 
of 1812, she makes mention in a letter — ^ The appearance 
and situation of the town fully equalled all my expecta- 
tions ; but with respect to literary conversation, I cer- 
tainly was a little disappointed. The fashion of making 
large parties is now so prevalent there, that I scarcely 
ever saw a small one, and what " feast of reason " or " flow 
of soul" can be enjoyed where a hundred people are 
standing huddled together in a large room, where Italian 
trills are faintly heard above the general buzz ? It is true 
that when this crowd is at leng-th arranged round four or 
five supper tables, if you are fortunate in your neighbours, 
you have the prospect of a very pleasant hour, and fortu- 
nate I often was. The dinner parties that I attended were 
seldom brilliant; at table each one talks to his next 
neighbour, and it rarely happened that I had ever seen 
mine before. A total stranger, as I was, cannot expect to 
taste the pleasures of society, of which intimacy and con- 
fidence form so important a part, in their full perfection 
— the Scotch character, too, which is grave and cautious, 
is unfavourable to the pleasures of slight acquaintance. 
But on the whole the people please me ; they are kind, 
hospitable, ingenious and well informed, and I have gained 
from my expedition a store of instruction and amusement 
which was well worth the pains of the journey. Of their 
eminent men in science and letters (all of whom I saw 
except Scott and Dugald Stewart) Playfair delighted me by 
far the most. His simplicity, his benignant courtesy, his. 
deference for others, his modesty, his extensive knowledge. 



MEMOIE. XXlll 

and the genius and sensibility he is always unconsciously 
betraying, are quite enchanting and surprisingly piguan^s. 
Dr. Brown is my second favourite : after getting over 
the unfavourable impression of his pert manner and 
habitual smile, I was pleased with his great acuteness, 
his imagination, and his goodness of heart ; nature meant 
him for a grave character, and if he would subdue his 
unfortunate ambition to appear a wit, he would be much 
more pleasing. But Jeffrey ! — after having won from him 
a handsome letter of apology, of course I did not object 
to being introduced to him ; and it would indeed have 
been a pity not to have seen the most amusing man, one 
of the few amusing men, of Edinburgh. He has vivacity, 
fluency, rapidity of manner — rare qualities in a Scotchman. 
He gesticulates like a Frenchman, and dashes in conver- 
sation like an Irishman — hit or miss. He coins new 
words, applies old ones grotesquely, disdains nothing for 
the sake of effect, and altogether gives the idea of a very 
clever fellow^ rather than of a first-rate wit or a great 
genius. I saw Mrs. Hamilton often by her own fire-side, 
which she was unable to quit ; she was very kind to me, 
and I had great pleasure in her conversation ; her good 
sense, her cheerfulness, her knowledge of the world, and 
her great kindness of heart, make her a delightful com- 
panion. Her prejudices indeed are strong, but that did 
not signify to me, who never sought to conquer them. 
Of other ladies, such as were naturally Scotch, for the 
most part pleased me better than those who were affectedly 
English. An old Scotch gentlewoman, with her native 
j dignity, her acute observation of life and manners, and 
j her cordial hospitality, is a fine creature, by whom I am 



XXIV MEMOIE. 

at once interested and instructed ; but from a fine Edin- 
burgh Miss, drawling out in a hoarse whisper a jargon 
neither Scotch nor English — affecting ease without an 
idea of elegance, and dressing her coarse features in 
assumed languishment, to attract the attention of any 
man who can offer her an establishment — Grood Lord 
deliver us ! You will not imagine that all the young 
ladies I met with were the odious creatures I have 
described ; there were certainly some who possessed, like 
Miss Edgeworth's Belinda, "delicacy of mind and dignity 
of manners ; '' but the female fortune-hunters, who form a 
large body there, deserve all I have said and much more.' 
Miss Aikin resided at Stoke jS'ewington until her father's 
decease in 1822. His increasing infirmities required her 
constant care, and during this period she had but few 
opportunities of enjoying the literary society which at a ; 
later date fell to her share. She thus describes her every- 
day life in a letter to her friend Mr. Holland of Knutsford 
— ' Our little home is now in all its glory ; the garden is 
full of flowers and fruit as it can hold. Arthur (her 
brother) is with us at present, and he and my mother 
almost live in it. Shall I give you an account of our 
different manners of spending the day ? Whoever is down 
first in the morning, turns into the garden and rambles 
about till I summon to breakfast. As soon as that is 
over, my father sits down to biography in his study; my 
mother and Arthur begin their operations in the garden, '- 
where she often stays, gathering fruit and vegetables, 
cutting off dead flowers, &c., most of the morning ; he, ' 
after a while, retii'es to his room upstairs, to write for the 
" Encyclopaedia." I step to the butcher's to order dinner. 



MEMOIR. XXV 

after which I shut myself up in my little closet, where I 
stay till dinner time ; after dinner my father and mother 
play backgammon, Arthur and I walk in the garden for 
some time, and then return to our studies, while my 
father and mother nap or read ; after tea we walk or sit 
down to our business till candle-light, when we meet with 
books, and work in the study ; after supper we play whist 
for some time, I read Virgil to my father, and at eleven 
we march off to bed.' 

Mrs. Aikin shortly after her husband's death removed 
with her daughter to Hampstead, and died there in 1830. 
During her residence here in 1827, Miss Aikin made a 
visit to Cambridge, of which she gave the following account 
to her correspondent, Mr. Holland : — ^ I am very little 
addicted to journies myself; but lately an irresistible 
temptation was thrown in my way, and I indulged myself 
in the pleasantest thing possible — a jaunt to Cambridge, 
which I had never seen, planned by Mr. Whishaw and 
Professor Smyth, and in which our very agreeable neigh- 
bours, Mr. and Mrs. Mallet (he is a son of Mallet du Pan, 
and Secretary to the Audit Board, and she a charming- 
woman) partook. Mr. Whishaw took her and me down in 
his carriage, and a very amiable young Komilly on the 
box ; Mr. Mallet went down by coach. We left on the 
Thursday and returned on the Sunday. The professor gave 
us two grand dinners, and assembled several of the bright- 
est stars of the university to meet us ; among the rest the 
Bishop of Lincoln, certainly one of the most admirable 
persons I have seen — mild, polished, perfectly unassuming ; 
! but firm and consistent in liberal views and principles, 
! and acute and full of talent. We had also Mr. Sedgwick, 

b 



XXVI MEMOIR. 



Woodwardian Professor, and the great mathematician 
WTiewelL These two are intimate friends, and a good , 
deal alike in their cast of mind and manners ; that is to | 
say, they are very clever and able men of that kind of j( 
which Mr. Brougham is the great exemplar — men of I 
wonderful energy and activity of mind, profound in one or 'i 
two branches of knowledge, and ignorant of none, whose 
conversation teems with allusions drawn from the most h 
various and distant sources, illustrating bright and original ^ 
ideas of their own— men to whom it is a delight, but not t 
a relaxation, to listen — whose thoughts flow almost too 
rapidly for language to overtake them — whose ideas come 
crowding and jostling like a throng in a narrow gate. In 
Mr. Brougham, the experience of the world and the habit 
of applying his eloquence to practical points in law and 
politics, on which it is his business to talk down to very 
ordinary capacities, has moderated the exuberance which 
reigns unchecked in the discourse of these academics ; but i 
if any force of circumstances could have tied him down to 
a college life, he would have been such as one of these. 
It pleased me to observe how completely in these instances i 
the spirit of the nineteenth century has mastered the e 
spirit of monkery and the middle ages in which ouri. 
universities were founded; but the forms are still kept 
up, more than the forms in some things.' 

Miss Aikin's only literary publication during her resi- 1 
dence in Hampstead was the * Memoirs of Addison,' which r 
appeared in 1 843 ; she continued to reside in the same 
village until the following year, when after a short sojourn 
in London, in the house of her nephew Mr, C. A. Aikin,^ 
she became an inmate of the family of Mr. P. H. Le Breton' 



MEMOIR. XXVll 

and his wife, her niece, the daughter of her brother 
Charles — for the first six years at Wimbledon, and during 
the last twelve years of her life at Hampstead. To this 
place she was ever much attached, and her return to it 
gave her much pleasure — many dear relatives and friends 
lived there. The vicinity of Hampstead to the metropolis 
afforded at the same time the opportunity of intercourse 
with a more varied society. She enjoyed with keen relish, 
and thoroughly appreciated, the company of literary men, 
and of the eminent politicians and lawyers, with whom she 
delighted to discuss questions of interest. With almost 
every distinguished writer of this period she was acquainted, 
and of many of them notices will be found in her corres- 
pondence. 

One who knew her well* has truly said of her — 'that 
I she possessed in a remarkable degree the art of conversa- 
I tion, an art which seems in some danger of being lost in 
the crowds which fashion brings together. It was not, 
however, an art cultivated for display. Whether in inter- 
course with a single friend in a small circle, or an assem- 
blage of persons of intellectual attainments equal to her 
own, there was the same flow of anecdote, quotation and 
allusion, furnished by a most retentive memory, and 
enlivened by wit and humour.' 

For nearly twenty years Miss Aikin kept up a corres- 
pondence with the Eev. Dr. Channing, of Boston in the 
United States on all the interesting topics of the times. 
To the last she retained her memory and her faculties. 

After a few days' illness, from an attack of influenza, 
she died on the 29th of January 1864, in the 83rd year 
of her age. Her grave in the old churchyard of Hampstead 

* The Kev. John Kenrick, of York, 



XXVm 3IEM0III. 

is next to that of her beloved and honoured friend, Joanna 
Baillie, with whom during a large portion of life she had 
been in constant intercourse. In her loss one of the links 
of the chain which binds us to the last century is broken. 
For solid acquirements, brilliant talent, sound judgement, 
and high and noble principles, it will be difficult to find 
one more worthy to be held in remembrance. 



MISCELLANIES 



BY THE LATE 



LUCY AIKIN. 



MEMOIE OF MISS BENGER. 

Elizabeth Ogilvy Benger, whose life affords an inter- 
iesting example of female genius struggling into day 
! through obstacles which might well have daunted even 
the bolder energies of manly enterprise, was born in 
the city of Wells, in February 1778. She was an only 
child — a circumstance which her affectionate heart always 
led her to regard as a misfortune. Her father, somewhat 
late in life, was impelled by an adventurous disposition to 
give up commerce and enter the navy, and ultimately 
became a purser. In consequence of this change, he 
removed his family to Chatham when his daughter was 
four years of age ; and, with the exception of about two 
ears' residence at Portsmouth, Chatham or Rochester 
as her abode till the year 1797. An ardour for know- 
edge, a passion for literary distinction, disclosed itself 
ith the first dawnings of reason, and never left her. Her 
bonnections were not literary ; and her sex, no less than 
fier situation, debarred her from the most effective means 
)f mental cultivation. She has been heard to relate, that 



I MEMOIR OP MISS BENGEB. 

in the tormenting want of books which she suffered dur- 
ing her childhood, it was one of her resources to plant 
herself at the window of the only bookseller's shop in the 
place, to read the open pages of the new publications 
there displayed, and to return again, day after day, to 
examine whether, by good fortune, a leaf of any of them 
might have been turned over. But the bent of her mind 
was so decided, that a judicious friend prevailed upon her 
mother at length to indulge it ; and at twelve years of 
age she received instruction in the Latin language. At 
thirteen she wrote a poem of considerable length, called 
* The Female Geniad,' in which, imperfect as it necessarily \ 
was, strong traces of literary genius were discerned. With 
the sanction of her father it appeared in print, dedicated I' 
to Lady de Crespigny, to whom she was introduced by 
her uncle, Sir David Ogilvy, and from whom she after- \ 
wards received many kind and flattering attentions. 

Her father contemplated her literary progress with 
delight and with pride ; and on his appointment to the 
lucrative situation of purser on board Admiral Lord(! 
Keith's own ship, it was his first care to direct that not 
expense should be spared in procuring instruction for his^ 
daughter in every branch of knowledge which it might be tJ 
her wish to acquire; but the death of this indulgent, 
parent in the East Indies, within a year afterwards. _ 
blighted the fair prospect now opening upon her. Cares 
and difficultitjs succeeded; the widow and the orphan, 
destitute of effectual protection in the prosecution of 
their just claims, became the victims of fraud and rapa- 
city, and a very slender provision was all that could bet 
secured from the wreck of their hopes and fortunes. Infi 
the course of the following year, 1797, they removed to 
the neighbourhood of Devizes, where, together with thef 
society of affectionate friends and kind relations, Miss 
Benger also enjoyed free access to a well-stored library.' 



MEMOIR OF MISS BENGER. 3 

But that intense longing for the society of the eminent 
and the excellent, which always distinguished her, could 
only be gratified, as she was sensible, in London; and 
thither, about the beginning of 1800, her mother was 
induced to remove. Here, partly through the favour of 
Lady de Crespigny, partly by means of her early intimates, 
Miss Jane and Miss Anna Maria Porter, but principally 
through the zealous friendship of Miss Sarah Wesley, who 
had already discovered her in her retirement, she almost 
immediately found herself ushered into society where her 
merit was fully appreciated and warmly fostered. The 
late Dr. George Grregory, well known in the literary 
world, and his admirable wife, a lady equally distinguished 
by talents and virtues, were soon amongst the firmest and 
most affectionate of her friends. By them she was grati- 
fied with an introduction to Mrs. Elizabeth Hamilton, of 
whom she afterwards gave so interesting a memoir ; to 
the author of ' Pleasures of Hope ; ' to Mrs. Barbauld, and 
to the late Dr. Aikin, with the different members of whose 
family, but especially with her who now inscribes, with 
an aching heart, this slender record of her genius and 
virtues, she contracted an affectionate intimacy, never 
interrupted through a period of more than twenty years, 
and only severed at length by the stroke which all things 
mortal must obey. Another, and a most valuable con- 
i nection, which she afterwards formed, was with the family 
of E. Smirke, Esq. R. A., in whose accomplished daughter 
she found an assiduous and faithful friend, whose ofiices 
of love followed her without remission to the last. Mrs. 
Inchbald, Mrs. Joanna Baillie, the excellent Mrs. Weddell, 
and many other names distinguished in literature or in 
(I society, might be added to the list of those who delighted 
j in her conversation and took an interest in her happiness. 
fj Her circle of acquaintance extended with her fame and 
j with the knowledge of her excellent qualities ; and she 

b2 



4 MEMOIR OF MISS BENGER. 

was often enabled tx) assemble as guests at her bumble tea- 
table, names whose celebrity would have insured attention 
in the proudest saloons of the metropolis. 

Early in her literary career. Miss Benger had been in- 
duced to fix her hopes of fame on the drama, for which i 
her genius appeared in many respects well adapted ; but 
after ample experience of the anxieties, delays, and 
disappointments which in this age sicken the heart of li 
almost every candidate for celebrity in this department, : 
she tried her powers in other attempts, and produced, first, 
her poem on the 'Abolition of the Slave Trade,' and 
afterwards two novels, published anonymously. Many 
passages in the poem are replete with sentiment and 
imagination, and there are lines of great harmony and 
beauty; but a suggested subject is unfavourable to inspi- 
ration, and the piece would have borne condensation with 
advantage. Of the novels, ' Marian,' the first and the best, 
did not obtain the attention' which it deserved, and which 
the name of the author would probably have secured it. 
The style is eloquent and striking; the characters have 
often the air of well-drawn portraits ; the situations are 
sometimes highly interesting, and with many passages of 
pathos, there are several of genuine humour ; the princi- 
pal failure is in the plot, which, in itself improbable, is 
neither naturally nor perspicuously unfolded. The same 
general character applies to ' Valsinore, or the Heart and 
the Fancy ; ' but of this piece the story is equally faulty '■ 
and the interest less highly wrought. No judicious per- - 
son, however, could peruse either work without perceiving ; 
that the artist was superior to the work ; that the excel- 
lences were such as genius only could reach, the defi- 
ciencies what a more accurate and comprehensive know- 
ledge of the laws of composition, or a more patient 
application of the labour of correcti n, might without 
difficulty have supplied. No one, in fact, was more sen- 



ii 



MEMOIR OF MISS BENGER. O 

sible than herself that she had not yet attained the power 
of doing justice in the execution to the first conceptions 
of her fancy ; and finding herself in many respects unfa- 
vourably circumstanced for acquiring that mastery in 
literary skill, she prudently turned her attention from 
fictitious narrative to biography and criticism — rising in 
her later works to the department of history. Between 
the years 1814 and 1825, she gave to the world, in rapid 
succession, ' Remarks on Madame de Stael's Germany ; ' 
'Memoir of Mrs. Hamilton ; ' 'Memoirs of JohnTobin' 
(author of the ' Honeymoon ') ; ' Notices of Klopstock and 
his Friends,' prefixed to a translation of their ' Letters ' from 
the Grerman ; and the ' Life of Anne Boleyn,' and * Me- 
moirs of Mary Queen of Scots, and of the Queen of 
Bohemia.' Most of these works obtained deserved popu- 
larity ; and she would probably have added to her reputa- 
tion by her projected ' Memoirs of Henry IV. of France,' 
had life and health been lent her for their completion. 

But to those who knew her and enjoyed her friendship, 
her writings, pleasing and beautiful as they are, were the 
smallest part of her merit and her attraction. Endowed 
with the warmest and most grateful of human hearts, she 
united to the utmost delicacy and nobleness of sentiment, 
active benevolence, which knew no limit but the furthest 
extent of her ability, and a boundless enthusiasm for the 
good and fair, wherever she discovered them. Her lively 
imagination, and the flow of eloquence which it inspired, 
aided by one of the most melodious of voices, lent an in- 
expressible charm to her conversation ; which was height- 
ened by an intuitive discernment of character, rare in 
itself, and still more so in combination with such fertility 
of fancy and ardency of feeling. As a companion, whether 
! for the graver or the gayer hour, she had indeed few 
1 equals ; and her constant forgetfulness of self, and unfailing 
j sympathy for others, rendered her the general friend, and 



6 MEMOIR OF MISS BENGER. 

favourite, and confidante, of persons of botli sexes, all f 
classes, and all ages. ]Many would have concurred in |i| 
judgment with Madame de Stael, when she pronounced - 
Miss Benger the most interesting woman she had seen 
during her visit to England. 

With so much to admire and love she had everything j 
to esteem. Of envy and jealousy there was not a trace I 
in her composition; her probity, veracity, and honour, 
derived, as she gratefully acknowledged, from the early 
precepts of an assiduous and most respectable mother, 
were perfect. Though not less free from pride than from 
vanity, her sense of independence was such, that no one 
could fix upon her the slightest obligation capable of 
lowering her in any eyes ; and her generous propensity to 
seek those most who needed her offices of friendship, 
rendered her, in the intercourses of society, much often er' 
the obligor than the party obliged. No one was more 
scrupulously just to the characters and performances of 
others, no one more candid, no one more deserving of 
every kind of reliance. 

It is gratifying to reflect to how many hearts her un- 
assisted merit found its way. Few persons have been 
more widely or deeply deplored in their sphere of ac- 
quaintance; but even those who knew and loved herj 
best, could not but confess that their regrets were purely 
selfish. To her the pains of sensibility seemed to be dealt 
in even fuller measure than its joys ; her childhood and 
early youth were consumed in a solitude of mind, and 
under a sense of the contrariety between her genius and* 
her fate, which had rendered them sad and full of bitter- 
ness ; her maturer years were tried by cares, privations., 
and disappointments, and not seldom by unfeeling s^ghts^ 
or thankless neglect. The irritability of her constitution; 
aggravated by inquietude of mind, had rendered her lift, 
one lono^ disease. Old as^e, which she neither wished noi 



MEMOIR OF MISS BENGER. 7 

expected to attain, might have found her solitary and ill. 
provided — now she has taken ' the wings of the dove, to 
flee away and be at rest.' 

A short but painful illness terminated her career on 
January 9, 1827. 



EECOLLECTIONS OF JOANNA BAILLIE. 

It has been my privilege to have had more or less of 
personal acquaintance with almost every literary woman 
of celebrity who adorned English society from the latter 
years of the last century nearly to the present time, and 
there was scarcely one of the number in whose society I 
did not find much to interest me ; but of all these, ex- 
cepting of course Mrs. Barbauld from the comparison, 
Joanna Baillie made by far the deepest impression upon 
me. Her genius was surpassing, her character the most 
endearing and exalted. 

I was a young girl when I first met her at Mrs. Bar- 
bauld's, to whom she had become known through her 
residence at Hampstead, her attendance on Mr. B.'s 
ministry, and her connection with the Denman family. 
Her genius had shrouded itself under so thick a veil of 
silent reserve, that its existence seems scarcely to have 
been even suspected beyond the domestic circle, when the 
' Plays on the Passions ' burst on the world. The dedi- 
cation to Dr. Baillie gave a hint in what quarter the 
author was to be sought ; but the person chiefly suspected 
was the accomplished widow of his uncle John Hunter. 
Of Joanna no one dreamt on the occasion. She and her 
sister — I well remember the scene — arrived on a morning 
call at Mrs. Barbauld's ; my aunt immediately introduced 
the topic of the anonymous tragedies, and gave utterance 



8 EECOLLECTIONS OF JOANNA BAILLIE. 

to her admiration with that generous delight in the mani- | 
Testation of kindred genius, which distinguished her. But 
not even the sudden delight of such praise, so given, could 
seduce our Scottish damsel into self-betrayal. The faithful 
sister rushed forward, as we afterwards recollected, to bear il 
the brunt, while the unsuspected author lay snug in the P 
asylum of her taciturnity. Eepression of all emotions, I' 
even the gentlest, and those most honourable to human i 
nature, seems to have been indeed the constant lesson of ' 
her Presbyterian home. Her sister once told me that 
their father was an OKcellent parent : when she had once 3 
been bitten by a dog thought to be mad, he had sucked 
the wound, at the hazard, as was supposed, of his own life 
— but that he had never given her a kiss. Joanna spoke ^ 
to me once of her yearning to be caressed when a child. 
She would sometimes venture, she said, to clasp her little 
arms aV)Out her mother's knees, who would seem to chide [ 
her — ' but I know she liked it.' Be that as it may, the i 
first thing which drew upon Joanna the admiring notice i 
of Hampstead society, was the devoted assiduity of her \ 
attention to her mother, then blind as well as aged, whom "- 
she attended day and night. But this task of duty came 
at length to its natural termination, and the secret of her f- 
authorship having been permitted to transpire, she was no 
longer pri\ileged to sit in the shade, shuffling off upon i, 
others her own fair share in the expenses of conversation. 
Latterly, her discourse flowed freely, and it had too much 
of her own nature in it not to be ever welcome and de- 
lightful ; but of all the writers, I might -almost say the 
readers, I have ever known, she spoke the least of books. 
In fact she never loved them ; it was not from them, but 
from real life, and from the aspects of rural nature, that • 
her imagination drew the materials in which it worked, 
and it had been the penance of her youth to be drawn 
away from these to her studies. ' I could not read well,' she 



BECOLLECTIONS OF JOA^'NA BAILLIE. V 

once said to me, ' till nine years old ! ' '0 Joanna,' cried 
her sister, ' not till eleven ! ' 'I made my father melan- 
choly breakfasts,' she continued, ' for I used to say my 
lesson to him then, and I always cried over it. And yet 
they used to say, *' this girl is not stupid neither ; she is 
handy at her needle, and understands common matters 
well enough." I rambled over the heaths and plashed in 
the brook most of the day.' 

At school, by her sister's report, she was the ringleader 
in all pranks and frolics, and used to entertain her com- 
panions with an endless string of stories of her own in- 
vention. She was also addicted to clambering on the roof 
of the house, to act over her scenes alone and in secret. 
At the time of her birth, and during all her girlhood, her 
father, who afterwards became Divinity Professor in the 
University of Griasgow, was the minister of a rural parish 
in the neighbourhood, and his children ran about with 
those of his humble parishioners, barefoot like the rest. 
It was even a sacrifice to her to give up the practice. In 
summer she would confess her longing to pad in the 
grass, free from the incumbrance of hose and shoes ; and I 
have known her throw away some eloquence in vain 
endeavours to prevail upon prejudiced English parents to 
allow their children to partake in so healthful an indul- 
gence. 

She had, in fact, a full share of the national predilections 
for which the Scotch are remarkable. But her large 
benevolence of nature purified this sentiment in her from 
the spirit of boasting and the gross unfairness which are 
its usual concomitants. It appeared practicable in her to 
love Scotch things and persons more, without loving the 
English less. Yet in many respects she never Anglicised 
in the least degree. Whether she and her sister actually 
took pains to keep up their native dialect, I know not, but 
it is certain that on their revisiting Glasgow twenty or 



10 RECOLLECTIONS OF JOANNA BAILLIE. 

thirty years after they had first quitted it, their friends i 
were surprised to find them speaking with a broader 
accent than themselves, by whom the English pronun- 
ciation had long been anxiously cultivated as a genteel 
accomplishment. If, however, any stranger, on the I] 
strength of these her primitive notions and Scottish pro- 
vincialisms, had expected to detect in her the slightest 
deficiency in good manners or social refinement, he would 
speedily have found his error. Joanna Baillie was an 
innate gentlewoman, and over the meekness of her dispo- [ 
sition and the simplicity of her demeanour, there presided 
a genuine dignity, capable of repelling arrogance, and 
striking unworthiness with ' blank awe.' Her reserve had 
much of caution, but nothing of cowardice ; she had per- 
fect self-possession, and courage sufficient to say and do 
whatever in her high moral sense she judged right, re- 
gardless of any one's opinion. But such was her indul- 
gence, and the truly Christian humility of her spirit, that 
practically she was only too tolerant of impertinence and ; 
intrusions. She was the only person I have ever known, 
towards whom fifty years of close acquaintance, while they 
continually deepened my affection, wore away nothing of 
my reverence. 

So little was she fitted or disposed for intellectual dis- 
play, that it was seldom that her genius shone out with 
its full lustre in conversation ; but I have seen her power- 
ful eye kindle with all a poet's fire, while her language 
rose for a few moments to the full height of some ' great 
argument.' Her deep knowledge of the human heart, also,|j! 
would at times break loose from the habitual cautiousness, 
and I have then thouo-ht that if she were not the most 
candid and benevolent, she would be one of the most 
formidable of observers. Nothing escaped her, and there, 
was much humour in her quiet touches. The acuteness, 
and originality of her mind displayed itself most in her 



RECOLLECTIONS OF JOANNA BAILLIE. 11 

off-hand remarks. Now and then, when I have been on 
my way to relate to her something new, which I thought 
might amuse or interest her, I have said to myself, ' What 
will be her comment ? No — that I cannot anticipate, but 
I am sure that it will be the best thing said on the 
occasion.' And such it never failed to prove. 

No one would ever have taken her for a married woman. 
An innocent and maiden grace still hovered over her to 
the end of her old age. It was one of her peculiar charms, 
and often brought to my mind the line addressed to the 
vowed Isabella in ' Measure for Measure ' — ' I hold you for 
a thing enskied and saintly.' If there were ever human 
creature ^pure in the last recesses of the soul,' it was 
surely this meek, this pious, this noble-minded and nobly 
gifted woman, who, after attaining her ninetieth year, 
carried with her to the grave the love, the reverence, the 
regrets, of all who had ever enjoyed the privilege of her 
society. 



OLD TIMES. 



A DIAXOGTJE. 



MRS. HAEFORD. SOPHIA. 



Sophia. I have often read and heard, grandmamma, 
that elderly people always give the preference to past 
days over the present, but I think I have observed the 
contrary in you. ' These are glorious times,' you some- 
times say; *they are continually improving something.' 
One might suppose that every age made improvements ; 
but perhaps there may have been more, or greater ones, 
within yom- memory than in former periods, or is it only, 
my dear grandmamma, that you are more inclined than 



12 OLD TIMES. A DIALOGUE. 

other people to be pleased with the present, whatever it |i 
may be ? 

Mrs. Harford. I should be very willing, my dear, to t 
accept the compliment of your last supposition if I 
honestly could. To be particularly disposed to be pleased \ 
with the present, would be no small merit at the age of [ 
eighty ; but there have, as I think, been unusually rapid ■• 
advances made in most things since the accession of 
George III., which is about the time that my distinct 
recollections begin. I take the pleasure which I suppose 
almost all people do in looking back to the days of my : 
youth, but if I were to give you an account of the kind of j 
life I then had, I am pretty sure you would not think it 
one to be envied. : 

S. I wish you would give me such an account, madam, j 
I should Hke very much to be able to make comparisons i- 
between these times and those. 

Mrs. H. To do that fairly you must take as much as :. 
possible the same class and place and condition. My 
recollectioDs are chiefly of London ; my father being, as 
you may have heard, in a great wholesale and retail 
business in one of the best streets of the city. He was t 
the younger son of a country gentleman, poor, but of good 
family, and having an education better than common L 
stood high in his class. Being a weakly infant, unable to p 
bear the closeness of London, I was therefore sent out to | 
nurse with an elder sister at IsHngton, then a rural village ; . 
for in those days, till a man in trade became wealthy and: 
took a younger partner, he always lived at his shop; hei 
had usually apprentices living in his house, and his wife,! 
who, besides attending to domestic affairs, assisted him' 
behind the counter or in the counting-house, was much 
too important a person in the family to be spared to go 
into the country with every child whose health might 
happen to require it. Thus we early lost the caresses oft 



OLD TIMES. A DIALOGUE. 13 

a mother. Nor was there any very extraordinary attention 
paid to us by our nurse ; she treated us, however, pretty 
much like her own children, and like them we scrambled 
through. Domestic instruction was out of the question 
with parents so fully occupied ; governesses were then 
imknown, except, perhaps, in some families of very high 
rank. And after quitting our nurse, my sister and I were 
quickly sent off to a London boarding school. 

S. And what were you taught there ? 

Mrs. H. Our worthy governess chiefly professed, in her 
own words, ' to bring up young women in the fear of Grod, 
and in neatness ; ' but some few other branches of know- 
ledge were also taught, or at least attempted. We had a 
French teacher, with whom we read a little of Gril Bias — 
an odd school-book for girls, but it supplied us with a 
considerable number of familiar phrases, which we patched 
together as well as we could to make up the school jargon 
which we were compelled to use under the name of 
French. We read a little English, learned a little arith- 
metic, and to write. Some were taught the Italian hand, 
a long narrow delicate character, slowly traced with a 
crowquill, and appropriated to women ; others the round 
hand which succeeded it, and which, I will take the liberty 
to remark, was at least more legible than the running 
scribble of modern young ladies. That we were all made 
expert with our needles you may be sure, for at that time 
plain work was a woman's chief employment, and fine 
works were her principal amusement. 

>S^. But you learned music and drawing without doubt ? 

Mrs. H. They were not so much as thought of for us. 
I think there were in my time about four or five of the 
richest and most fashionable of our young ladies who took 
a few lessons on the spinet, and about as many more who 
learned a very little drawing, in very bad taste ; but the 
parents of the rest of us would have thought it not only 



14 OLD TIMES. A DIALOGUE. 

extravagance, but presumption, to give such showy and 
expensive accomplishments to girls destined for good j 
housewives. We all learned to dance, however, both [ 
minuets and country dances, and I well remember that \ 
before our grand annual exhibition at the master's ball, 1, 
such of us as nature had not favoured with the high fore- 
head, then esteemed a beauty, were obliged to submit to [ 
the application of a strip of pitch plaister round the edges a 
of the hair, by means of which it was torn up by the roots. \ 

S. Ah, how barbarous ! 

Mrs. H. We had other penances to undergo, unknown f 
to the damsels of these happier days. There were back- 
boards, iron collars, stocks for the feet, and a frightful 
kind of neck swing, in which we were suspended every 
morning whilst one of the teachers was lacing our stays ; \ 
all which contrivances were intended and imagined to i 
improve the figure and tbe air. Nothing was thought so 
awkward and vulgar as anything approaching to a stoop. 
' Hold up your head I hold up your head, miss ! ' was the ,. 
constant cry. I wonder any of us kept our health : we had jr 
very little exercise of any kind, were tightlaced in very ; 
stiff stays, not sufficiently warmed in winter, and both, 
coarsely and sparely fed. The only advantage we enjoyed 
above modern young ladies — but this is perhaps an im-j 
portant one — was in not having our faculties overstrained; 
by too many lessons in too great a variety of pursuits, f 
I was released from my school at about fom'teen, and glad ( 
enough, I assure you. By this time my father had become . 
a man of considerable property. He had quitted the,; 
house of business for Bloomsbury Square, then accounted! 
a very genteel situation, and set up his carriage. He had 3 
purchased a small estate about forty miles from London,'- 
and we divided the year between town and country, but, 
I do not think you would much have reli&hed our way of; 
life in either. 



OLD TIMES. A DIALOGUE. 15 

aS'. Pray describe it to me. 

Mrs. H. In the first place, the journey from one to the 
other was not performed quite with modern ease and 
rapidity. Although we travelled with post horses, we 
generally found it necessary to sleep on the road ; — we 
always did so, at least, when we went to keep our Christmas 
in the country. Finchley Common, which lay in our way, 
was a tract over which nobody then ventured to travel in 
the dusk ; and even at noonday the appearance of a 
horseman-traveller caused us some palpitations. The by- 
roads were formidably bad, and even the great north road 
was crossed in four or five places by streams, over which 
there were no bridges, and which, in times of flood, it was 
somewhat dangerous to pass. In one place we had to pass 
close imder a gibbet on which the body of a murderer was 
hung in chains. When at length we were arrived, the 
Christmas logs hardly sufficed tolerably to warm the windy 
old mansion with its rattling casements and floors scantily 
carpeted. Neighbours we had very few, and the annual 
dinner or tea visits which we paid were formal and dull. 
We had but a small assortment of books of any kind, and 
no new ones. 

S. How did you contrive to fill up your time ? 

Mrs. H. Oh, there was no great difficulty in that. 
Besides, our own sewing included a vast deal of laborious 
flourishing upon cambric, gauze, and catgut ; we had all 
the shirts to make for my father and the boys ; we had 
all the pastry and sweets to make, besides a good deal of 
exercise in potting, pickling, preserving, and wine-making. 
At washing times we were required to assist in hang- 
ing out the linen, folding, clear-starching, and ironing ; 
we 

8. My dear grandmamma, is it possible that young 
ladies were put to all this drudgery ? You might as well 
have been cooks or laundry-maids. 



16 OLD TIMES. A DIALOGUE. 

Mrs. H. We did not think so, I assure you. As these 
acts were then regarded as an essential part of female 
education, and as all our neighbours spent their time in 
the same occupations, we never regarded these things as 
hardships. Still it was a life of little variety, or what in 
modern phrase is called excitement. I confess I should 
have liked at least to make the tour of the county, but 
excursions of this kind were not much the fashion. We 
did, however, sometimes pay visits to relations at a distance, " 
which we enjoyed with a zest only known, I believe, to ' 
those whose pleasures come but seldom; and a county 
assembly was an event to be reckoned upon for weeks and 
talked over for months. The chief alloy of our social 
enjoyments was the stiff and really barbarous ceremonial 
which then accompanied all the common actions of life. 
From the retired life that they led, and the awe and sub- 
jection in which they were kept by their elders, damsels 
had then a degree of bashfulness, or awkwardness if you 
please, of which it is my private opinion that the accom- 
plished young ladies of these days cannot even form an \ 
idea. Imagine, then, what it was, in the midst of a 
formal dinner, after calling for beer and receiving it from 
the servant in a cup or glass, by the bye, which had pre- 
viously served half the company 

S. Ah, filthy ! 

Mrs. H. It was so. After this, I say, think what it was f 
to go round the company, crying out with an audible 
voice, ' Mrs. A., your health ; Dr. B., your good health,' 
and so on — each person as you proceeded laying down his 
knife and fork to be ready to acknowledge the compliment ! 

S. Dreadful indeed ! 

Mrs. H. I have often sat almost choking with thirst, - 
but quite unable to summon courage for the operation of 
drinking. I remember once seeing an awkward girl sur- ■ 
prised by the approach of a health as she was in the act of 



OLD TIMES. A DIALOGUE. 17 

picking the leg bone of a fowl with her teeth — another 
o-raceful practice of that day — who suddenly dropped both 
her hands and sat quite still with the bone across her 
mouth. 

S. Ha ! ha ! like a death's head with cross bones in the 
border to a bill of mortality ! 

Mrs. H. It was even worse when we came to the wine 
after dinner or supper ; it was then not sufficient to drink 
healths : a young lady would often be required, in spite of 
blushes and entreaties, to give as a toast either the name 
of a single gentleman or a sentiment. 

S. How tormenting I but what kind of sentiments ? 

Mrs. H. Perhaps some such flat affair as this : ' May 
the single be married, and the married happy.' But I 
ramble — these old recollections carry me away. I was 
going to describe to you our town life. We were here 
exempted from a part of uur household business, and a 
few more diversions fell in our way — such as a good play, 
or now and then a concert, or a visit to Eanelagh or 
Vauxhall. But the ordinary style of visiting was dull 
enougli. Morning calls were not much the fashion, but 
after what would now be called a very early dinner, the 
custom was to drive to the house of some acquaintance 
and sit perhaps half an hour, then to another, and another, 
contriving to reach by tea-time some lady whose visiting- 
day it was. With her you perhaps found some half-dozen 
people assembled, and either a pool or a rubber was made 
up, or the visit was spent sitting in a formal circle, where, 
as Cowper says, — 

'Yes, ma'am,' and 'No, ma'am,' uttered softly, show 
Every five minutes how the minutes go. 

Well-bred ease was then rare indeed; in fact it was 
jscarcely known except in very high life ; the middle classes 
imight be said to be mere beginners in the arts of social 
entertainment. G-reat improvements have since been 

c 



18 OLD TIMES. A DIALOGUE. 

made in this way. At this time the fashion of frequenting i 
watering-places, which has both good and evil in it, was \ 
but just introduced. Few frequented them except upon 
the plea at least of health. We went one season to Bath, 
for my father's gout. It was very shortly after the pub- ^ 
lication of ' Anstey's Bath Gruide,' and you have only to t 
treat yourself with the perusal of that witty and enter- j, 
taining piece to gain a very good notion of the manners / 
and customs of the place at that time. [ 

S, I have read it, and it seemed to me like an account l 
of some foreign country — everything is since so changed. ; 
The fashions of dress appear to have been signally barba- 
rous in taste. 

Mrs. H. The powdered and frizzled wigs worn by young 
ladies were bad enough, certainly. In other points I know 
not that the present times have any great advantage. As 
far as I can compare things, it seems to me that dress was 
rather more costly, in proportion to other expenses, then 
than at present, owing no doubt to the impfovement of 
our manufactures by the invention of the steam-engine' 
and machinery. But we had much fewer changes of 
apparel. The choice of a best gown was really onlyi 
second in importance to the choice of a husband ; it was,, 
not every year that we bought a new one. 

S, \Miat, not one new dress in a year ! 

Mrs. H. Not a best dress. Young women in our statioi^ 
of life would buy one year a rich silk gown and petticoat, 
called a suit of clothes, which would cost five pounds oi 
more, and the next year they would content themselve^ 
mth a slighter one, less trimmed and without a petticoal^ 
of the same, which was called a night-gown. 

S. What a very ugly name for a dress I 

Mrs. H. Yes, that name, and still more the custom; 
which I remember amongst ladies of fashion, of receivin^^ 
their company in an apartment adorned in other respect^ 



OLD TIMES. A DIALOGUE. 19 

like a drawing-room, but bearing the name of a dressing- 
room, and set out with a showy toilet, at which the lady 
sometimes appeared actually under the hands of the hair- 
dresser, were certainly relics of the gross manners and 
slatternly customs of the French court, first brought here 
under Charles II. But every age and country has some 
practices which, to the rest of the world, appear indecorums. 
We, for instance, never thought of shaking hands with any 
gentleman; and the modern custom of lounging upon 
sofas would have shocked us much in my young time. 
We had then no sofas. 

S. No ! How did you exist without them ? 

Mrs. H. When people were really ill, they went into 
their own chambers and lay down on the bed. When 
they were well, they took the trouble to sit upright on 
their chairs. You know I am even yet no friend to 
lolloping, as I call it. 

S. 1 know, dear grandmamma, that you never practise 
it. You have no habits of self-indulgence. 

Mrs, H, I was brought up in none, and in that respect 
I do think that former days had the advantage of these. 
We had much fewer wants, and I have still about me so 
much of the old school as to think it better in all respects 
for mind, body, and outward estate, not to wish for 
luxuries and superfluities than even to possess them. How 
much better, then, is it than to wish for them and to be 
unable to procure them — the case of thousands at present ! 
We had neither hearth-rugs nor foot-stools, nor lounging 
chairs, nor foot-warmers for carriages, and when we 
entertained a few friends at dinner, it was without silver 
forks, or napkins, or finger-glasses, or French dishes, or 
ices. But I cannot think that we were to be pitied on 
jthis account. These are all of them things which no one 
^but a spoiled child would wish for, except for the sake oi 
making as genteel an appearance as his neighbours. I do 

C 2 



20 OLD TIMES. A DIALOGUE. 

confess, however, that it is very difficult to draw the line 
between real comforts, or agreeable luxuries, and mere 
superfluities, and I feel some gratitude to be due to the 
inventors of Eumford stoves, gas lights, and umbrellas. 

S. Is it possible that you had no umbrellas ? 

Mrs. H. I never possessed one till I married ; and it 
was many years after that before they got into their pre- 
sent universal use. 

S. How did you manage to protect yourselves from the 
rain? 

Mrs. H. We had good cloth cloaks, with hoods to them, 
for very bad weather. When we were caught in a sudden 
shower with our best bonnets on — coming out of church, 
for example — I am afraid we were so shocking as to cover 
them as well as we could with our pocket-handkerchiefs. 
Nay, I have seen the skirt of the gown turned over the 
head for this purpose. But I do humbly confess the - 
superiority of the umbrella to all these contrivances. 

S. You said just now that you never shook hands with 
gentlemen. 

Mrs. H. Never ; it would have been thought a strange 
masculine familiarity. 

*S'. But when you were very glad to see some old friend,) 
how did you receive him ? 

Mrs, H, In that case, the gentleman would take 
salute. 

S. And was that less of a favour than shaking hands ?^ 

Mrs, H. The lady at least was passive in that case ; but 
now you see girls actually offering their hands to young 
men. I believe, too, it is held that the ladies are alway4 
to speak to gentlemen first at meeting. And now I ana; 
tired of telling my old stories, and you, I think, must ber 
tired of hearing them. 

S. No, indeed ; they interest me very much. But I wiU 
not encroach upon your kindness. You will now allo-w 



OLD TIMES. A DIALOGUE. 2l 

me to give you this soft hassock of my own work to rest 
your feet upon. 

Mrs. H. Well, my dear, I will not refuse to touch 
modern luxury with the tip of my toe, though I should 
be very sorry to steep myself in it up to the lips. 



HOW CHARACTER IS FORMED. 

A DIALOGUE. 

But oars alone can ne'er prevail 

To reach that distant coast; 
The breath of heaven will swell the sail, 

Or all our toil is lost. 

Two old schoolfellows, between whom more than twenty 
years of friendship, cemented by the marriage of one 
to the sister of the other, had established the most con- 
fidential intimacy, had taken advantage of a public holiday, 
to enjoy the rare indulgence, to men closely occupied in 
the active business of life, of a long tete-a-tete walk. Their 
conversation, after glancing upon a variety of topics, some 
general, others personal, settled at length upon a theme 
of universal interest, and the following dialogue ensued. 

A, After all, what is it, do you say, which forms the 
character ? 

B, What formed yours ? 

A. I really cannot say. I never thought about the 
matter. 

jB. Will you let me examine you, and cross-examine 
you too, if I see occasion, since it is my vocation ? 
! A, Examine as much as you please, and I will answer 
ito the best of my knowledge and belief. 
i B, Temper is a very important feature of character ; 



22 HOW CHAEACTER IS FORMED. A DIALOaUE. 

can you remember your own ever to have been materially 



f 



different from wbat it is, and if so, what changed it ? 

A. I was excessively passionate when a child, and once != 
in my fury I aimed an unlucky blow at my younger 
brother, which laid him senseless at my feet. For a few f. 
moments I thought myself his murderer ; the agony of my |i 
terror and remorse I shall never forget. My father con- 1 
firmed the impression by placing me in solitary confine- | 
ment for several days. It did me much good. I am still |; 
far too irascible, but never since, on any provocation, ? 
have I lost all command of myself. t 

B. That is to say, that your own painful experience of :t 
consequences, combined with wholesome discipline, taught j 
you to control your temper, but without changing it. :. 

A. Exactly so. But I never bore malice in my child- 
hood, nor do I now ; and I am not envious. 

B. No ; I can answer for you on both these points. And i! 
you were attached to your parents, fond of your brothers 
and sisters, and willing to give up your o^vn inclinations,: 
to theirs. 

A. I loved them all dearly, and was usually pretty: 
ready to make sacrifices to those who were not less willing: 
to make them to me. 

B. Here we have the influence of sympathy; but did- 
it act equally on all the family ? 

A. Why, no. There certainly was an exception. If 
one may speak the truth of him now he is dead and gone,: 
it must be owned that Dick was always a selfish dog, and^ 
cunning too. He was the only one amongst us who would 
tell lies for the sake of gaining little advantages to him- 
self. My parents always made truth-telHng the first points 
with their children ; but they could never get a straight-c 
forward answer from him if he thought that an equivoca-t 
tion or a falsehood would serve his purpose better. 

B. To what do you ascribe this moral obliquity of his ?i 



HOW CHARACTER IS FORMED. A DIALOGUE. 23 

A. 'All wickedness is weakness,' it has been said, 
and whether that be absolutely true or not, I have con- 
stantly imputed the fatal errors of this unfortunate brother 
of mine solely to the feebleness of his mental constitution. 
No moral ideas made a deep or clear impression upon 
him. Present pain, and present pleasure, were the only 
things which much affected him ; even bitter and often 
repeated experience could not teach him to weigh the 
consequences of his actions. I know not what stress you 
will lay upon the observation, but it is a fact that he was 
like neither of his parents, nor any one of their children ; 
but bore the strongest resemblance, both in person and 
manners, to a brother of my mother's, whose character 
and whose career in life were not less unthinking and 
unfortunate than his own. 

B, I attach great importance to these resemblances ; in 
the same family at least, I have constantly observed that 
physical and moral likeness go together, and that these 
inherent qualities, or tendencies, often, as in the case of 
your brother, render nugatory the most judicious measures 
of the wisest parents, and even withstand the force of 
circumstances and the rough discipline of the world. 
Pray, how did you acquire that ready and skilful use of 
the pencil which I have admired in you ever since we 
were first acquainted ? 

A, Oh, by imitation, no doubt. My father had the talent 
in a high degree, and was sketching at every leisure 
moment. 

B. And you all inherited or acquired it from him ? 
A, Not all. William and Sophia had no aptitude 

whatever for drawing ; my father tried in vain to teach 
them. On the other hand, Sophia alone amongst us had an 
ear for music, and William, as you know, evinced from 
childhood a genius for the mathematics, which was cer- 
tainly no part of his inheritance, but which seemed to be 
a gift of nature. 



24 now CHARACTER IS FORMED. A DIALOGUE. 

B. Who, or what, inspired you with the ardent attach- 
ment to civil liberty, which at school caused you many a 
black eye and bloody nose, and which has not seldom stood 
in the way of your advancement since ? 

A. I imbibed the sentiment, almost before I can re- 
member, from my father, who cherished it as the very 
breath of life. In his early days he had endured both 
obloquy and loss in the good old cause, as he used fondly 
to call it ; and I should have felt myself unworthy to bear \ 
his name had I abandoned his principles. I now begin 
to perceive that it must have been his general influence 
over me which had the greatest share in the formation of 
my character, or at all events of my opinions, sentiments, 
and acquirements. 

B. Your habits ? 

A. His, all his, and my mother's ; which were indeed 
moulded upon his. Everything in our house went as if 
by clockwork. My parents were never on any occasion to 
be waited for, and never one moment idle ; and the like 
punctuality and diligence were required of us children. 
It was not that we had no play — that would have rendered 
our home and its ways irksome to us ; on the contrary, we 
had rather a large allowance ; but the rule was, work 
when you work, and play when you play ; no lounging ! 
To this training I owe more than I can reckon. 

B, You may well say so, if it be to this that you are 
indebted for the best business habits I have seen in any 
man. But again I ask, did this admirable training pro- 
duce similar efifects on you all ? 

A. Yes, I think so, more or less. Poor Dick, indeed, 
could not be made either punctual or industrious. In 
spite of daily objurgations he would never make his" 
appearance in the morning till breakfast was half over ; * 
he was always behindhand with his task, and had to be 
roused from a recumbent posture, either on the sofa or 



HOW CHAKACTER IS FORMED. A DIALOGUE. 25 

the lawn, half a dozen times in the day. Sophia, too, was 
somewhat indolently disposed; but I think that in her 
this infirmity was connected with deeper sensibility, and a 
more poetical imagination, than the rest of us were blessed 
wdth. 

B. You call these blessings ? 

A, Surely I do. They give to life its aroma. Since I 
have enjoyed the happiness of a union with one whose 
pre-eminence in these gifts you know so well, I have learnt 
to value them aright ; and I have even discovered that 
more of both existed in the depths of my own nature than 
I had ever before been aware of. Among the influences 
which have contributed to form my tastes, and in good 
measure my character, I should be ungrateful indeed to 
forget those of a wife not less the object of my admiration 
than my tenderness. I know not when the education of 
a man may be said to be finished, but assuredly mine was 
in many respects still in its rudiments when I first formed 
my attachment to your sister. 

B. She has had an apt scholar, at any rate. But let us 
now, in an orderly manner, sum up the results of your 
testimony. Temper, probably innate and constitutional, 
controlled by experience, reflection, and discipline, but 
never changed. The selfish principle successfully com- 
bated among a family of children, and domestic affections 
instilled by the silent force of sympathy. The principle 
of veracity firmly established among them by parental 
influence and example ; but these means failing with one 
child, probably from feebleness of intellectual constitution, 
of which the race had exhibited a previous example. 
Political sentiments taken up early, and steadily perse- 
vered in from filial deference, and regarded as a point of 
honour. Habits formed by the same influence acting 
through the established rules of a happy and well-ordered 
home. Tastes and talents inherited or acquired from a 



26 HOW CHAEACTER IS FORMED. A DIALOGUE. 

parent by some of tlie children, not by all ; and a decided 
genius for mathematical science in one child, not traceable 
to any known source. New qualities brought out, and 
the formation of character completed, by the influence of 
a beloved object. 

A. And what are your deductions from these facts ? 

B. In the first place I perceive nothing exceptional in 
your case. These are the agents by which all human 
characters are formed, though the proportions in which 
they exert their influence on individuals, and the nature 
of that influence, vary exceedingly, according to circum- 
stances, according to the native vigour of the mind, and 
according to certain peculiarities of disposition which we 
are unable to account for. Some resist the action of other 
minds, and even the force of external circumstances, from 
strength of character, or of will — of which Napoleon was 
a striking example ; others are incapable, from weakness 
or levity, of any permanent impression. 

A. You are far, then, from holding that we come into the 
world, as some have said, sheets of blank paper, on which 
our instructors may trace what characters they please. 

B, I hold it in one sense — that is, I believe that our 
ideas are all acquired, not innate ; but as to the capacity 
of receiving and retaining impressions, these blank sheets 
differ as much as whity-brown from the finest woven post, 
or that which bears ink the best from mere blotting-paper, 
on which you can write nothing legibly or distinctly. 

A. It has been the theory of some writers, that every- 
thing is decided by first impressions ; or that it is on the 
associations formed by apparently trifling and unnoticed 
circumstances during the first two or three years of life, 
that the whole future character depends. 

B. I have no faith in those occult causes ; at most I 
would only admit their possible agency in the absence of ' 
all more obvious and probable explanations of the phe- - 



HOW CHARACTER IS FORMED. A DIALOGUE. 27 

nomena. As I said before, I attach great importance to 
the tendencies or qualities of race. You may indeed call 
this an occult cause, which no doubt it is, in the same 
sense as all the laws of nature are occult in respect of man ; 
but no one can doubt the existence of such tendencies, 
who looks at mankind in the large way, whether with the 
eyes of the traveller, the historian, or the ethnologist. 

A. In what part of our constitution do you hold that 
these tendencies are most prevalent ? 

B. It is hard to say. The likeness of an individual, 
whether of a family or of a people, among themselves, 
and their unlikeness to others, manifests itself both in the 
great outlines of character, in disposition, temperament, 
and capacity, and in particulars often so minute that it 
would appear ridiculous to mention them. It is the same 
in the bodily frame, in the mien and carriage, and in 
httle ways and oddities. You may trace family resem- 
blance as often in the shape of the finger nails or the 
growth of the hair, as in the voice, the outline of the 
features, or the mould of the form. What are called 
tricks in children, often spring from this deep root, and it 
is, therefore, that their correction is often obliged to be 
given up as hopeless. ' Why,' I once heard an anatomist 
exclaim to an anxious governess, ' do you take so much 
pains to make that girl hold up her head? It is all in 
vain. Look at her mother — mother crab and daughter 
crab.' 

A. Dangerous doctrine ! According to this, education 
has no influence ; and to correct anything we see amiss in 
children is a vain attempt. 

B. Not so neither. Though everything is not in our 
power, much is. There are means by which bodily tricks 
may be overcome. Under the care of the drill-sergeant 
every recruit learns to hold up his head, at least during 
exercise; and the most left-handed by nature never 



28 HOW CHARACTER IS FORMED. A DIALOGUE. 

persist in carrying the musket wrong. The force of 
discipline, and the principle of imitation, exert a steady 
counteracting power over all idiosyncrasies, physical or 
moral. We have also acknowledged the influence of 
sympathy, of precept, and of habit. Yet it is very clear 
that, on the whole, the formation of character has not been 
subjected to the will and pleasure of man. No one can 
say, ' I will make my son a distinguished man — a great 
poet, a great painter, or mathematician,' nor can he say 
positively, although I hold his power to be greater in the 
moral part, 'I will make him upright and benevolent.' 
On the other hand, no father, however wicked or unnatural, 
could find out a certain method of rendering his boy either 
stupid or profligate. It must always be with the prudent 
reservation of that adept who professed that he could 
make a child immortal, provided he were a fit subject for 
the experiment. 

Here the conversation of our two friends w£is interrupted 
by the hasty approach of a gentleman of their acquaint- 
ance, who, descrying them from his window, came out 
in haste to meet them, and insisted on taking them in 
to partake of his abundant and hospitable luncheon — a 
refreshment which they found very seasonable after so- 
much grave discourse. 



ON THE SPIRIT OF AEISXOCRACY. A DIALOGUE. 29 



ON THE SPIRIT OF ARISTOCRACY. 

A DIALOGUE. 

ALBERT. SOPHIA. 

Albert. 1 fear I have disturbed some learned debate. 
I heard the voices of Frank and Harry loud and earnest 
as I approached, but on my appearance they are gone. 

Sophia. And time they were. They would waste the 
whole day in talking, if I did not now and then hold up 
my watch to them. But this morning they got upon 
rather an interesting subject, as I thought, and I should 
be glad, my dear uncle, to hear your opinion upon it. 
Frank says there is more of the spirit of aristocracy in 
England than in any other country of Europe. This 
Harry denies, but what say you ? 

A. In the first place I do not pretend, whatever these 
academic youths may do, to possess sufficient knowledge 
of every country in Europe to give a proper answer to the 
question ; but perhaps the assertion may, or it may not 
be true, according to the sense which you attach to terms. 

S. How so ? 

A. That this is not the country in which there is 
the broadest line of demarcation between patrician and 
plebeian, noble and roturier, is evident from our possessing 
no native words to express exactly this distinction. We 
have, indeed, lords and commoners, but as the younger 
children of peers have always been included in the latter 
class, the nobility have never with us, as in France or 
Germany, formed a race, or caste, who could insult the 
rest of the nation by the boast of better blood than theirs. 
Id one sense, therefore, the assertion is plainly incorrect. 

S. This was Harry's argument. How could it be true. 



30 ON THE SPIRIT OF ARISTOCRACY. A DIALOGUE. 

he said, tliat aristocracy was so prevalent here, when even f 
the aristocratic part of our constitution was so popularly ' 
formed — when so many born plebeians sat and voted 
among the lords spiritual and temporal ? He added, with ^ 
respect to the nobility here and in the old monarchies of ' 
the continent, that it was there a towering palm, shooting 
up its stately trunk clear from the surrounding imderwood, f 
and bearing its whole canopy of leaves and blossoms aloft I 
in air ; whilst here, its branches, like those of the banyan, ^ 
bend ever downwards, and root themselves again in the \ 
common earth. I 

A. Pretty enough; and as much or as little to the 
purpose as similes commonly are. But in spite of this, 
if it is meant to assert that this is the country in which 
people are most uniformly deferential in their manners 
towards those whom they regard as their superiors, and ,1 
contemptuous to their inferiors, I am afraid it may be [ 
true. We are certainly very great respecters of persons, 

S, What can be the reason of it ? 

A. Several reasons, or rather several causes, may be 
assigned. In the first place, although we have never, 
correctly speaking, had patrician families, or a privileged 
order like the French noblesse, the distinction of ranks 
has always been very strongly marked among us. You 
may have read that in old times there was a difference 
made in gentlemen's houses between those who sat above 
and those who sat below the salt ; and in every baronial 
hall there were distinct tables for guests of different 
degrees, who were thus in presence without ever being in 
company with one another. There were also sumptuary 
laws by which the use of rich furs, velvet, gold lace, and 
other expensive materials and fashions of dress, and even 
of some luxuries of the table, was restricted to persons of 
a certain rank or fortune. Down to the overthrow of 
monarchy at the death of Charles I., the ceremonial of the 



ON THE SPiraX OF ARISTOCRACY. A DIALOGUE. 31 

English court had been almost oriental in its servility, and 
was viewed with surprise by foreign ambassadors. No 
one presumed to speak to Queen Elizabeth, but on his 
knees, and in her days a private gentleman or a knight 
was expected to stand ' cap in hand ' even to a peer. Now, 
although these appendages of barbarism and the feudal 
system have long been swept away, I think you will 
perceive that it may well require ages to wear out the 
marks left by them on the manners and customs of a 
people. Down to the present day does not an insignificant 
young gentlewoman like yourself expect her shoemaker 
or her milliner to stand in her awful presence while re- 
ceiving her orders ? 

^S'. Why, that is what those kind of people do of course ; 
one never tells them to do it, or thinks about it. 

A, Precisely, because there is so much in England of 
the spirit of aristocracy. In America, or in the France 
of the present day, you would find that such observances 
are by no means matters of course. There, a common 
workman would make no scruple of seating himself beside 
you. 

S. How horrid ! 

A. Yes, * how horrid ! ' With English young ladies 
that silly exclamation, too, is quite of course. You cannot 
bear the notion of your inferiors forgetting their distance 
towards yoii, and yet if you were to call upon a duchess, 
and she should motion you to a stool at the lower end of 
the room, you would scarcely be able to find terms strong 
enough to express your indignation at the arrogance of 
her behaviour. Is there not a greater distance between 
you, the daughter of a private gentleman of small fortune, 
and a duchess, than between you and a respectable 
milliner r 

S. I do not well know what to say to that. In fortune 
there is, no doubt, and in what one may call consequence. 



32 ON THE SPIRIT OF ARISTOCKACr. A DIALOGUE. 

but in another way there seems not to be. It is said, I 
believe, that a gentleman or a gentlewoman is company « 
for anybody ; now I — that is to say, papa is a gentleman, P 
and he sometimes visits noblemen, but a milliner is not a i 
gentlewoman. 

A. Speak out at once, child, without affectation, the |t 
thing that is in your head, which is this : that when your S 
great neighbours at the castle invite what are called the i 
county families once in the season, you go there with your 
sister and are received by the duchess as a person of her 
society ; whilst the milliner is never received by you or i 
your sister on that footing. 

S. That was what I meant, my dear uncle, but I did 
not know exactly how to express it. 

A. Your claim, then, to a kind of social equality with a 
duchess is that of a gentlewoman born ? 

S. Yes. 

A. But what if the milliner should turn out to be better i 
gentlewoman of the two ? With respect to the one you 
employ, I happen to know this to be the case. She is the 
granddaughter of a lord, a poor one indeed, but still a c 
lord. 

S. Is it possible ? Il 

A, Stranger things are very possible in this world of l 
mutability. Her mother married ill, in every sense of the p 
term, was cast off by her noble father and family, and i 
sank into indigence. She herself married a man of very 
respectable character, an artist, but he was carried off at 
an early age and left her with the charge of a young 
family whom she creditably maintains by the profits of % 
her business. Yet this lady you keep standing at your "^ 
audience ! 

S. Oh ! but indeed, my dear uncle, I had no idea that 
she was sucli a real gentlewoman. I will always make her 
sit down in future. 



ON THE SPIRIT OF ARISTOCRACY. A DIALOaUE. 33 

A, So far, well. But the disciples of Pythagoras ab- 
stained from crushing even a worm, for fear of dispossess- 
ing some kindred soul, and I would conjure you by your 
own gentility to forbear to keep standing any milliner or 
dressmaker you may in future employ, lest you should 
again be guilty of the horror of failing in respect to the 
granddaughter of a lord. It is very difficult to know the 
negative in these cases. 

8, You are laughing at me. 

A, Oh ! by no means. I only suggest the motive most 
likely to be effectual in persuading you to treat what you 
call ' those kind of people ' like fellow-creatures. But to 
return to her grace who is so good as to treat you like a 
fellow-creature. You ascribe this condescension of hers 
to your gentle birth, but to what, pray, do you ascribe the 
very marked distinction with which she receives the mis- 
tress of Million Hall, as people call it ? I dare say you 
know, for such facts are not easily suffered to fall into 
oblivion, that she was originally chambermaid at an inn ; 
and to say the truth, she looks it still, with all her blaze 
of diamonds, and that the enormously rich banker, her 
husband, began life as a porter in a warehouse. And yet 
it is more than surmised that this couple are courted by 
the noble duchess with the hope that their son and heir 
may be tempted to choose a wife amongst the six lady- 
daughters who grace her side. 

B. Oh no ! I cannot believe it. 

A. I can, without any difficulty. 

B. At least you would surely regard it as a very base 
sacrifice of dignity to wealth, if any one of those ladies 
could consent to marry the son of such parents. And 
were not the old strict rules you have been mentioning of 
this use at least, that they prevented such mesalliances, 
as the French call them ? 

A. But they did not prevent them. As long as great 



34 ON THE SPIRIT OF ARISTOCRACY. A DIALOGUE. 

fortunes have been raised by trade in this country — that 
is, for centuries past — our nobility have consented to take i: 
their share in the profit by means of those alliances which 
shock you so much, and against which, indeed, their own 
pride revolted even whilst they were driven into them by : 
avarice or necessity. Low birth, therefore, is not of itself • 
sufficient to exclude the rich from the intimate society ■ 
of the first nobles of the land. But neither does it always f; 
exclude those who are poor. 

S. No ! that seems very strange. What kind of persons 
at once poor and ignoble do the great associate with ? 

A. Mr. Burke has ventured to observe that kings are 
fond of low company, and the same may be said of many 
of their nobles. First, there is the whole class called led- : 
captains, or toad-eaters, the meanest of the mean, whom, t 
nevertheless, the proudest of the proud habitually admit to 
their tables and make a part of their familiar society. 
Above these, the professors of various dexterities, arts, and 
sciences, take stations determined by the tastes and fancies 
of the noble owners of those great caravanseras called 
family seats. In some great mansions, actors, singers, and 
musicians find a welcome ; in others, religious enthusiasts ; 
in some, boxers, jockeys, and cockfighters ; artists in others ; i 
and in a few, men of science or sound learning. The 
greater part of these persons are obscurely born and havei^ 
no other revenue than their wits, y^t as a class they mayi 
certainly pride themselves on a far greater share of the^ 
notice and society of the nobility than your rural gentry, ^ 
with their formal annual visit to the great man of thei 
neighbourhood, who merely tolerates their incursion in 
consideration of his office of lord-lieutenant of the county, 
or in hopes of influencing their votes at an election. 

S. But I am certain that many of those whom you 
mention as so famiHar with the great, are persons whom 
you, uncle, would not like to associate with, and whom I 
suppose, therefore, that you consider as your inferiors. 



ON THE SPIRIT OF AHISTOCRACT. A DIALOGUE. 35 

A, To be sure, I should not choose to open my humble 

doors to boxers and cockfighters, to led-captains and 

toad-eaters, or even to professors of the unknown tongue. 

I do look down upon all these guests of great houses, and 

I many others. 

I 8, But what is it, after all, on which a person's place in 
j society does depend? The more I think about it the 
I more I am puzzled. 

I A, That I can easily believe. To be puzzled is usually 

I the iirst effect of beginning to think in earnest upon a 

i subject, and those who are impatient of this feeling will 

I never come to understand any properly. In the first place, 

however, what do you mean by the expression ' place in 

society ? ' A herald would tell you that a man's place in 

society is that assigned him in the rules of precedence, by 

which he marshals a procession ; and in fact it is by these 

rules that people accounted well-bred arrange, at a ball or 

a dinner-table, such of their guests as happen to be thus 

entitled to any place at all. A knowledge of them may 

be attained without difficulty by the meanest capacity. 

/S. Yes, that I know ; but they determine only rank, 
and it seems to me that what is called consequence is a 
different thing, and depends upon I know not what. 

A, You are right. It is only on a few formal occasions 
that these rules will now apply ; the progress of civilisation 
has nearly superseded them. In modern society it is 
perpetually seen and felt that the last in rank may be the 
first in consequence. For many purposes wealth is power, 
knowledge is power, popular eloquence is power, genius 
is power, virtue is power, and from power result influence, 
consequence, eminence. But these are sources of distinc- 
'tion quite out of the cognisance of the Herald's College. 
' 8. I have sometimes heard it said that a person's place 
I in society is wherever he chooses to put himself, and I 
I begin to think there may be something in it» 
I d2 



36 ON THE SPIRIT OF AEISTOCEACY. A DIALOGUE, 

A. True ! Amongst my powers I forgot assumption,!] 
which well deserves to be reckoned for one. Youd 
may have seen young ladies lead the dance by that title i 
only. 

^S'. Yes, by mere rudeness and pushing. And I have'; 
observed at our county assemblies that the best bred, and 
sometimes, too, the best born young ladies, would stand, 
back till they were invited to come forward, whilst the^ 
vulgar and ill-behaved struggled boldly for the best plaxjes, 
and often gained them. 

A. So it will always be, more or less, in the graver 
competitions of life ; and there are circumstances in the ] 
present state of society and manners among ourselves^ 
which peculiarly favour the bold. Men and women, too, ' 
live in more, and consequently more various, society thanr 
they used to do. Continental travelling, the resort tow 
watering-places, great routs of parties, and those asso-t 
ciations which it has been the fashion to form for such a: 
variety of religious, political, benevolent, scientific, literary,- 
and miscellaneous objects, all tend to enlarge the circle of. 
every one's acquaintance and to mingle different ranksc 
and classes. Amid this ' various bustle of resort,' there is: 
little leisure critically to examine claims of merit or titles^ 
of precedence. A new acquaintance is commonly rated: 
partly according to the direct pleasure or advantage, of^ 
whatever kind, to be derived from his society, partly!: 
according to the value which seems to be set upon him.- 
by others, and partly, no doubt, according to that which: 
he appears to set upon himself. This is so well understood j 
that the cold and haughty air, affected by many towards 
strangers, is often to be regarded rather as an artifice, 
designed to convey an exaggerated impression of the^ 
consequence of him who uses it, than an evidence of what 
is properly called the spirit of aristocracy. 

S. Is it not true that the real born nobleman or gentle- 



ON THE SPIRIT OF AKISTOCRACY. A DIALOGUE. 37 

man is distinguished from the new or the counterfeit by 
the unpretending simplicity and universal courtesy of his 
behaviour ? 

A. That is an idea which has been much inculcated by 
some of our best novel-writers. It is plausible, and pro- 
bably founded in part on observation. At least it is likely 
that insolence should be the ordinary badge of an upstart. 
But pride and ill-nature have often run, too, in the highest 
blood ; kings themselves are not always exempt from the 
taint. A vulgar mind is very compatible with a noble 
race; and, generally speaking, it is only by a resolute 
determination on the part of the many to resist the arro- 
gant assumptions of the few, that the fierce spirit of here- 
ditary aristocracy has ever been, or ever can be, kept in 
order. But to reply to your question, on what it is that a 
person's place in society depends. The grounds of social 
distinction amongst us are three : rank, hereditary or 
official, including the political power annexed to it; — 
wealth ; — and personal endowments, achievements, or ac- 
quirements of every kind. It is obvious that he would be 
the first man in society who should unite in himself all 
these kinds of eminence in the highest degree ; since he 
would claim the homage of all, everywhere. But nature 
and fortune have seldom agreed in lavishing their favours 
on the same object; and distinction in one kind, without 
signal deficiency in other respects, is as much as usually 
falls to the lot of man. Hence it happens — and every 
sort of pride ought to stand rebuked by the reflection — 
that scarcely any one is the head of every company which 
he enters. In one circle he will be estimated by what he 
has, and in another by what he wants ; not to mention that 
every one, excepting the first in every line, is liable to be 
mortified by meeting a superior in his own department. 

>S'. Still, a nobleman is noble, a rich man rich, and a 
man of genius a man of genius in every company. 



38 ON THE SPIRIT OF ARISTOCRACY. A DIALOGUE. 

A. No doubt; but eminence is literally notliiiig but 
overtopping, and therefore must always be relative. 
Besides tbis, men do not long pay even outward respect 
to qualities from which they derive no kind of benefit. 
You may remember that Lord Halifax in his advice to 
his daughters, which is full of observation and knowledge 
of the world, tells them that 'the old housekeeper shall 
make a better figure in the family ' than the lady, if from 
pride and indolence she neglects to take her proper part in 
the government and business of it. A nobleman, though 
of high and ancient Hneage, if, either from poverty or 
avarice, he fails to make returns to the hospitalities he 
receives, will find more of contempt than honour from his ^ 
acquaintance ; a man even of acknowledged genius, if care- 
less and uncouth in the common intercourses of life, will 
be valued only by those conversant with his own art or 
science ; and the merely rich man will have to encounter 
the scorn of ' inferiors not dependent ' as often as he pre- 
sumes upon his single talent. I recollect a person of this 
kind, who once taking an overbearing tone in argument 
with an acquaintance beneath him in fortune but above 
him in sense and powers of reasoning, the other suddenly 
interrupted him with ' Pray, sir, have you made your will ? ' ^ 
' Yes,' he said, ' I have, but what makes you ask ? ' 
^ Have you left me a legacy ? ' ^ No, indeed.' ' Then I 
see no reason why I should submit my opinion to yours.' 
On the whole it must be owned that pride and surliness 
are features much too prominent in our national character; 
and we shall then, and then only, truly deserve the 
character of a civilised people, when, our eyes being 
properly open to the ofi'ensiveness of these qualities, a 
wholesome dread of the general indignation shall restrain 
all, whatever may be their rank or pretensions, from the 
airs of contempt and insult by which so many in every 
company now endeavour to Eissert their own importance 
and superiority. 



EXAMPLE AND PRECEPT. A DIALOGUE. 39 

EXAMPLE AND PEECEPT. 

A DIALOGUE. 

Henry. Since, then, example, as every one knows, is of 
more force than precept 

Albert Stop, if you please, or you will reduce me to 
nonentity ; for so far am I from knowing this, that I am 
firmly convinced of the contrary. 

H. Come, come, this is carrying your love of paradox a 
little too far. You well know this, at least, that ancient 
and modern philosophers, moralists and divines, are all 
against you ; there is absolutely not a dissenting voice in 
the matter. 

A. No ! What says Jeremy Taylor ? ' Against a rule 
no example is a competent warrant, and if the example be 
according to the rule, it is not the example but the rule 
that is the measure of our action.' But I care not what 
or who is against me, provided truth and reason be for 
me ; and I should not despair of even convincing you that 
in this case they are so, provided your prejudices would 
allow you to give me a fair hearing. 

H, Yes, to be sure, I must always be prejudiced, be- 
cause I am apt to think with the rest of mankind. But 
if you choose to try, you shall find that I can give you a 
fair hearing nevertheless. 

A. Very well, I take you at your word. In what cases, 
or for what purposes, do you hold that example is of more 
force than precept ? 

H, In that which was the subject of our discourse, in 
education, in the moral training of children ; and on this 
head I speak from experience. 

A, Indeed ! and you forget what happened no longer 
ago than yesterday ? 



40 EXA.MPLE AND PEECEPT. A DIALOGUE. 

H, To what do you refer ? 

A. We had promised, you know, to take your little p 
daughter with us on our water party. When the rain a 
came on and our project was given up, the child cried jfj 
with the disappointment. ' Fie, fie ! Mary,' you exclaimed ll 
with an air of triumph, ' you do not see me cry because I ll 
cannot go on the water.' 'No, papa,' replied the poor 
child, very sensibly as I thought, * but you are a great man, 
and I am only a poor little girl of six years old.' You \ 
were silenced by the retort, as well you might be, and so \ 
fell the power of example to the ground. A simple pre- j: 
cept against giving way to fretfulness or disappointment, « 
backed by arguments suited to the child's comprehension, 
might have had some effect — at least it would not have 
exposed you to an inglorious defeat. 

H. Well, I confess that to propose an example open to 
this kind of objection, is injudicious; mine was an ill- 
chosen one. 

A. Very true. But although the example were ever so 
fit for the occasion, the person to whom you should mo- 
destly propose yourself as a pattern, might still turn round 
upon you, and ask in the spirit of Maria's taunt to 
Malvolio, 'Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, 
that there shall be no more cakes and ale ? ' That is, why \ 
should your conduct serve as a rule to me ? ^ 

H. From my own children, at least, I trust I should [ 
never have that question to apprehend. \ 

A. I would not be too certain of that. There is a 
strange propensity in human nature to fly at anything 
which pretends to set itself up on high, and tear it down it 
if possible. I could mention a case in point. The thing 
happened to a lady of my acquaintance, who assuredly \ 
does not carry the virtue of humility to any excess. ' How (< 
awkward you are ! ' I heard her say to her little girl. ' I i 
do not hold my head down ; / do not turn in my toes as I ^ 



EXAMPLE AND PRECEPT. A DIALOGUE. 41 



walk ; I do not lean my elbows on the table.' ' I beg 

i your pardon, mamma,' said the child, who is really a well- 

! behaved little creature, * but are you not rather fond of 

I praising yourself ? ' To which no answer was given. On 

this plan, too, there is sometimes the opposite question to 

be asked, Why am I not to follow your example ? which 

puzzled you not a little when Master Harry made bold to 

put it to you the other day. It was when we surprised 

him in the dining-room with a bumper at his lips. ' You 

drink wine, papa, and why should not I ? ' Between these 

opposite dilemmas it would not be wonderful if children 

should come at last to the conclusion, that papa's example 

is a rule, or is not a rule, just as he pleases to make it — in 

short, no rule at all. 

H, With such perverse ingenuity as you are kind enough 
to lend them, they would equally find flaws in any rule or 
precept which might be given them for their guidance, 
since there is none without an exception. 

A, May be so. But then, at least, their objections, or 
their cavils, might be brought to the test of fair reasoning, 
without your finding yourself embarrassed with the argu- 
mentum ad hominem, 

H, Now, at last, I understand the matter! This 
quarrel of yours against example is but another form 
of your old jealousy of the interference of authority in 
matters where you would have reason sole and sovereign 
judge. 

A, I own it ; I hold it an unworthy thing as well as a 
dangerous, to impose upon a child the habit of relying on 
precedents, and bowing to examples, instead of encourag- 
ing him to enquire into the nature of things and the ten- 
dencies and results of actions, and thus to form himself 
on the immutable principles of reason and of duty. Can 
anything be more to the reproach of the ordinary training 
of youth than the large fact, which no one can question. 



42 EXAMPLE AND PRECEPT. A DIALOGUE. 

that through life the great mass of mankind are constantly \ 
governed by a precedent rather than a rule, a rule rather ^ 
than a reason ? Is there, indeed, one man in ten — in a \ 
hundred — who will take his stand boldly and independ- \ 
ently upon the truth, the sense, the right of a thing, so 
long as he can catch hold of any broken reed of an exam- 
ple, an analogy, a prejudice, a fancy, an idle superstition, \ 
to lean upon ? Is there 

ff, Grently, gently ! now you have mounted your hobby, 
and as usual he is running away with you, carrying you 
quite out of the course. Be pleased to recollect, that [ 
reason is not the only principle by which it is designed ) 
that we should be actuated. We have also imaginations, ^ 
passions, sympathies, affections, associations, by all of 
which our opinions and our conduct must and will be j 
influenced, more or less. What wise parent or teacher \ 
would not, therefore, be anxious to gain over these mighty 
powers to the side of virtue ? and how can he do this so 
effectually as by the aid of well-selected examples ? You 
would scarcely, I suppose, banish from the school-room all 
our biographers with Plutarch at their head. 

A. By no means. On the contrary, I set a higher 
value upon them, because it is principles that they teach. 
The very remoteness of the circumstances, especially in 
the ancient lives, from all that a youth sees around him, { 
and hence their inapplicability in the way of direct pre- 
cedent, is in my mind a great recommendation. You will \ 
allow it to be by no feeble effort of generalisation, that a > 
boy deduces, from his inward approbation of the refusal 
of Aristides to sanction a profitable scheme which was not 
just, a rule for his own guidance in his transactions with 
his schoolfellows ? 

H. Your distinction is too fine for me. Is it to living [ 
examples only that you object? 

A, 1 liave pointed out, as I think, very serious incon- 



EXAMPLE A]\D PKECEPT. A DIALOGUE. 43 

veniences attending the practice of setting any person, but 
especially one's self, before a child as an example. I am 
sensible, however, that both children and older people often 
derive great benefit from examples, whether in books or 
in life, which they find out and apply for themselves, 
because in this case the mind acts freely, and not under 
dictation, and the principle or sentiment is adopted, rather 
than the action itself imitated or repeated. In whatever 
belongs to physical education, in the manual arts and 
bodily exercises, example or the principle of imitation is 
indeed all in all. Such things can scarcely be taught 
otherwise than by shoiuing hoiv, but let us beware of sub- 
jecting to its authority those provinces in which reason 
and conscience ought of right to bear sway. Here, unless 
you establish principles, you do nothing ; for one example 
or authority may always be neutralised by another, 

H, Yet it is constantly held forth as one of the most 
imperative duties of every man to set a good example in 
his station ; and it is even maintained that a worthy man 
ought to abstain from many practices not evil in them- 
selves, nor dangerous to his own virtue, rather than give 
an example which may be hurtful to others. 

A. Yes, this is language, or this is a cant which passes 
current in very many places, as I very well know ; and it 
is likely it should, because it assists grave and weak 
persons, filling stations which render them more or less 
conspicuous, to flatter themselves into a very undue 
opinion of the importance of all that they say or do. But 
of this I am clear, that the man or woman who sets up for 
being ^ to all an example,' is sure enough of becoming ' to 
no one a pattern.' For the rest, practices are of three 
kinds — good, bad, and indifferent ; and a man should have 
much more cogent motives for following the first, and 
avoiding the second, than the supposed effects of his ex- 
ample on his neighbours ; and how his indulging in 



44 EXAMPLE AND PRECEPT. A DIALOGUE. 

practices which are indififerent can endanger the virtue 
of any one, I am unable to conjecture. 

H. Card -playing, for instance, and frequenting the 
theatre, are pastimes which you may reckon indifferent, 
but should you say that a clergyman was setting up a good 
example by openly indulging in them ? 

A. You begin the question by describing them as in- 
different. I should say that if a clergyman, or any other 
man, finds himself the better or the worse for them, to him 
they are not indifferent. But if it were maintained to be 
the duty of every grave character to abstain totally, for 
example's sake, from amusements innocent and salutary in 
moderation, because there may be dissipated persons who 
will indulge in them to excess, I should venture to reply, 
that such self-denial is totally thrown away. It is not by 
grave examples that people of this kind regulate their 
proceedings. 

H, But there are positive examples as well as negative 
ones, and you can scarcely deny the efficacy of these. Is 
it not, for instance, quite certain and notorious that in a 
village where the squire and his family are constant in 
attendance at church, their example will bring the farmers 
and labourers thither with unfailing punctuality, but that, 
as soon as these leaders of the people happen to be 
succeeded by others who are negligent and indifferent on 
this great point, the clergyman may officiate to bare 
walls ? 

A, I like that instance — it shows so clearly the shallow- 
ness and servility of such a motive of action. The ex- 
ample of the family, or rather the hope of their favour, is 
sufficient, it seems, to bring all the parish to church, but 
with so little sense of the purpose for which they go, that 
on the cause ceasing, the eff'ect ceases also. Thus, between 
the great people who go to set an example, and the Httle 
ones who go to follow one, there might be a full congre- 



EXAMPLE AND PEECEPT. A DIALOGUE. 45 

gation without a single person present who should attend 
for the love of Grod, or the good of his own soul ! But I 
take this to be a tale of other times ; our present genera- 
tion of rustics is surely not left in such Egyptian darkness 
by those whose duty it is to bear to them the light of reli- 
gion. In morals, the imitative principle will go thus far — it 
will teach men to ' dwell in decencies,' but for anything 
higher, or anything deeper, anj^thing that shall render a 
man worthy to be made himself an example, never let it 
be trusted. Imitators in virtue, as in letters or in arts, 
must of course be content to take their place below their 
models ; but this is not all : in many cases it is not even an 
inferior degree in the same class that they will attain. 
Change the motive or the rule, and you change the very 
nature of actions or of qualities. What, in characters of 
principle and reflection, was patriotism, philanthropy, or 
piety, is subject to become in their copyists ostentation, 
cant, hypocrisy. Deeds belong to the first class, words to 
the second. Even the same act assumes different aspects 
according to the actor. That very insignificant person — I 
forget his name — who killed himself to resemble Cato, 
earned nothing for his pains but the sarcastic remark, 
that he might well have borne to yield to Caesar, although 
Cato could not. And let me ask whether you have not 
experienced a profound disgust when some atrocious 
malefactor, assuming the person of the holiest martyr, has 
presumed to announce from the scaffold his solemn for- 
giveness of all his enemies, intending very particularly, by 
that designation, the judge, jury, prosecutor, and witnesses, 
who have all in their several offices contributed to bring 
him to his deserved punishment ? 

H, I confess that this has often struck me as a shocking 
presumption, and indeed as a profanation. 

A. Examples, like similes, may serve to give ani- 
mation and interest to discourse ; they may, likewise, be 



46 EXAMPLE AND PRECEPT. A DIALOGUE. 

employed to illustrate or explain a maxim or a principle, 
and, happily chosen, they may kindle emulation ; but then 
they ought not to be set before young people for the 
nonce, and in short 

H. In short, you are jealous of them. But if good 
examples do so little service, I hope you will go on to 
prove that bad ones do as little injury. 

A, That does not follow. I believe indeed that their i\ 
direct effect may have been overrated, and that in many \ 
cases where young people are said to have been corrupted \ 
by them, the contagion might be questioned, and the i 
mischief imputed rather to general causes acting upon i 
numbers at once. Le feu des jeunes gens prend sans i 
allumer. But their efficacy in overcoming shame, and 
putting scruples to flight, cannot be doubted ; and as the 
same persons who set bad examples usually maintain bad g 
principles also, I should dread the influence of evil p 
company fully as much as you could do. I will also freely 
grant you that precept has no force whatever when it is i 
contradicted by the life of him who utters it, as we i| 
naturally give credit to a man's deeds before his words. So 
that ill example set by persons in any kind of authority 
involves this great inconvenience, that it deprives them of li 
the power of inculcating good principles with any authority 
or to any purpose. (1 

H. I am glad you allow as much as this. !j 

A, I can very well afford to do it, and yet stand firmly 
to my original position, that the practice of setting 
examples before young people for their imitation, is not 
so efficacious in forming them to the higher virtues as ^ 
nourishing their minds with noble precepts, supported by 
just reasoning and temperate appeals to the affections. 

H. Well, I am not convinced as yet, but I admit that 1^ 
it is a matter worth thinking about. 



ENVY AND PITT. 47 



ENVY AND PITY. 

' It is better to be envied than pitied.' 

Those who adopt this maxim mean no more, it is to be 
hoped, than that the causes of envy, prosperity, or 
superiority over others in the gifts of nature or fortune, 
are better than the causes of pity, misfortune or some kind 
of inferiority. 

Understood in the obvious import of the words, few 
sentiments could be more false or more shocking. What ! 
better to be the object of the most malignant than of the 
gentlest of affections, of a sentiment which degrades 
rather than one which adorns humanity ? It will not bear 
a thought ! As mercy is ' twice blessed,' so is envy twice 
cursed, in its subject and in its object, and he who is 
willing to stand within its danger, thinking that his 
power, his wealth, or his genius, place him above all ap- 
prehension of its effects on his fortunes or his reputation, 
either perceives not, or regards not, its inevitable mischief 
to his temper and his moral feelings. In speculating on 
the causes of that hardening of the heart observed in all 
times as one of the most frequent attendants on great 
prosperity, the foremost place should doubtless be assigned 
to the consciousness of being envied. 

' He loves not to behold my prosperity,' says the rich 
man to himself, as he notes the scowl on the brow of his 
poorer neighbour. ' Nay, so far from that, the very sight 
of my mansion, my park, my equipage, is odious to him. 
I never did him the smallest injury, yet it would delight 
him to hear that calamity, ruin even, had overtaken me ; 
then can I be expected to feel for him, to be touched by 
his sorrows, to aid him in his objects ? You all of you 
grudge me my success; you watch every occasion to 



48 ENYY AND PITT. 

detract from my merits and commendations ; you would 
gladly pull me down, even if it did not raise yourselves.' 
So murmurs the victorious candidate for ttie honours of i 
his profession, on reading the eyes of the associates and 
former equals over whose heads he has just raised himself. 
* I despise and I defy your malice, but henceforth be 
strangers to my bosom, and as much as possible to my | 
sight ! ' Ask you the cause of that frown which disfigures 
the brow of innocent beauty ? The wearer has just been 
made to feel that 

The nymph must lose her female friend 
If more admired than she. 

And thus it happens that, more sinned against than sinning, 
the favourites, whether of nature or of fortune, are found i' 
so often soured in temper, void of sympathy, little sensible" 
to the pleadings of pity, and reduced to please themselves 
in nothing but in efforts still to augment that wealth, that 
dignity, or that celebrity, which has already robbed them 
of the best and dearest of life's blessings. 

But thousands are susceptible of pity for one who is 
altogether free from the passion of envy; thus he whofi 
finds himself, without or even not without fault of his own, 
in circumstances to call forth compassion and appeal for 
relief, enjoys, very frequently, the satisfaction of viewing 
his fellow-creatures on the fairest side; pleased withp 
themselves for the exercise of their benevolence, and com-! 
placent, therefore, towards him who has called it forth. So' 
far, then, from agreeing in the popular sentiment, we might 
almost be tempted to say that a pitied adversity is better 
than an envied prosperity. It is by no means unfrequent 
to hear a sufferer exclaim that it was almost worth while 
to have encountered this loss — endured that sickness — ^ 
sustained that misfortune, for the sake of experiencing sof 
much sympathy and kindness; but when has any one,' 
on coming into possession of a great estate, or attaining 






ENVY AND PITY. 49 

any conspicuous success, expressed the sentiment, that the 
affectionate congratulations of his friends and associates 
had been the most gratifying circumstance of his good 
fortune ? The spirit of man thirsts for sympathy, even as 
the hart panteth after the water-brooks. No station, no 
circumstances, neither the victory car nor the diadem of 
empire, can justly be called happy which exclude this boon 
of heaven and summon envy in its place ; none miserable 
which calls it forth in a plenteous and unfailing stream. 
Lord Bacon in his essay on Envy observes, that ' There is 
some good yet in public envy, whereas in private there is 
none ; for public envy is as an ostracism, that eclipseth 
men when they grow too great; and therefore it is a 
bridle also to keep great ones within bounds.' Politically 
speaking, the distinction is perhaps just, but moral ends 
may be served by the former no less than the latter. He 
who desires to be as little as possible the object of private 
envy, will equally be kept, or keep himself within bounds. 
If wealthy he will be generous without ostentation, and 
above all sympathising; if powerful he will exercise 
authority not as often, but as seldom, as his duty will 
permit. If singularly favoured by any of nature's gifts, 
he will bear his faculties meekly, and cheerfully take 
delight in bringing forward the just claims of others. By 
these, if any, acts, while he will preserve his own heart 
from injury, he may sometimes dilute the venom of this 
snake in the bosom where it harbours. 



SORROW AND ANGER. 

There are many persons who never can be sorry without 
(|being disposed to grow angry. In every calamity, they are 
,jcertain there must have been blame somewhere, and right 

or wrong, they must seize upon a scapegoat. 

E 



50 SORROW AND ANGER. 

A friend has failed in business ; they are full of concern [ 
for him and his helpless family— but what? It could 
scarcely have happened from pure misfortune— some one | 
has been much in fault — want of caution on his own part 

an unfeeling creditor — a speculating partner — and amid 

the storm of indignation aimed at the hypothetical author 
of the mischief, the sigh of pity for those who suffer by it 
ceases to be audible. 

Is intelligence received of a friend's decease? 'Ah, 
poor fellow! I am very sorry — so valuable a life — so 
great a loss ! But to think of his putting himself under 
the care of such a quack ! But for that he might have 
been alive and well. I hope the fellow will be indicted 
for manslaughter.' Sometimes the blame falls on the 
dead person himself. ' He was so exceedingly imprudent, 
walking out in the worst weather without a great coat — 
and why did he not take advice sooner ? There he was, 
going about just as usual, when everybody who looked at 
him saw that he ought to have been in his bed. Eeally if 
a man will throw away his life, one scarcely knows how 
to pity him.' Accordingly, he is not pitied. 

Why is this ? It will scarcely be pretended that the 
passion of anger is less disturbing to the soul than that 
gentler emotion of pity, which has always in it some 
mixture of sweetness. There is indeed somewhat of 
relief in a change, though it be but from one painfuU 
feeling to another ; but in this instance the cause seems 
to lie deeper. A tacit reference to self enters, more or 
less, into all our sympathetic emotions. It is matter of i 
the most familiar remark, that no misfortunes affect us so 3 
much as those which are likely one day to fall to our own 
lot; and in our anxiety to remove this apprehension fromi 
ourselves, we are ever ready to catch hold of some casual) 
or accessory circumstance to which to impute the calamity.- 
' My friend,' we say, ' was indeed ruined, but it was by 



SOEEOW AND ANGER. 51 

negligence, by imprudent trust. I, who am neither im- 
prudent nor negligent, have no such catastrophe to fear. 
He died, but it was through the ignorance of his physician ; 
I employ one who is skilful.' A little distrust, however, 
is apt still to intrude upon these consolatory explanations. 
We fear it may be only a flattering unction that we are 
laying to our souls, and we endeavour, by our very vehe- 
mence, to impose silence on our secret doubts how far it 
may be well directed. 

As, in these cases pity is exchanged for blame, there are 
others in which, anger being out of the question, it yields 
to terror. In visitations, or apprehended visitations of a 
formidable epidemic, all may have observed how little is 
given to pity for those who have already fallen victims, 
how much to selfish apprehension. 

It is the important duty of candour, of fortitude, and of 
wisdom, to curb the transports of that weak impatience of 
the pains of sympathy, and that still weaker dread of 
similat disaster to ourselves, which in every great or un- 
foreseen calamity, cries out for a victim, as if to appease 
some angry deity. 



DOUBT. 

He well has studied who has learned to doubt.' 
A hard saying, and one little flattering to the pride of 
learning ! Is that to be regarded as a valuable and de- 
sirable result of study, which leaves behind it nothing but 
uncertainty and the confession of ignorance ? Or is there 
possibly in this learned doubt something deeper, some- 
thing more positive even than at first appears ? 

Several considerations render this probable. The deri- 
jvation of the word ' dubietas ' from ' duo ' may authorise us, 
Iperhaps, to distinguish between doubt in its strict and 



52 DOUBT. 

proper acceptation and mere uncertainty; it seems to 
express, not total bewilderment, but rather hesitation 
between two ; and in many cases, he who has become 
aware that the matter under consideration admits of an al- 
ternative, or may be reduced to one, already knows much. 

Childhood, amid all its ignorance, is unacquainted with 
doubt. Its simple questions, relating for the most part to 
outward and familiar facts within the competence of any 
grown up person, usually receive a ready and decisive 
answer. Should it even happen, as happen it sometimes 
will, that the question of an intelligent child has plunged 
unawares into one of those gulfs, too deep for the plummet 
of thought, which lie hidden beside every path of human 
speculation, many expedients are at hand to cover the 
defeat of parental or preceptorial infallibility. Some- 
times a dogmatical assertion will be hazarded where 
nothing can be known to contradict it. At others, a 
rebuke for meddling with what does not concern us, will 
do the business. Best of all, is the discreet reply, ' You 
are too young at present to understand the subject,' which 
serves at once to save the credit of the questioned, and to 
flatter the novice with the expectation that a time will 
come when all his puzzles shall be solved. 

Through these artifices, and others of a similar kind, ) 
not seldom practised upon * children of a larger gTOwth,' j 
we all of us begin by being beguiled in a greater or less 
degree, into the belief that much more certainty is attain- 
able on every subject than, excepting in the exact sciences, 
has been in reality accorded to the inquiries of mankind, j 

'To know how little can be known,' and how much 
admits of doubt, is the attribute, not of ignorance, not of ^ 
simplicity, but of sagacity, of experience, and of free in- 
quiry. To confess it, is often one of the most costly eflforts 
of a courageous integrity ; for there is no vulgar or disin- . 
genuous mind which is not immediately afifected with 



DOUBT. 53 

suspicion and anger on any appearance of hesitation, 
uncertainty or scruple, of which it is either unable to 
comprehend the grounds, or unwilling to accept the 
practical consequences. From these causes it has arisen, 
that in common speech, something sinister attaches to the 
very words doubt and doubtful. 

It might contribute a little to mitigate this prejudice in 
spirits of a better order, with whom it is often merely the 
offspring of a vague kind of dread, to draw a clearer dis- 
tinction than is often done between the intrinsic import- 
ance of a truth, and the importance of our knowing or 
having an opinion upon it. 

To remain long in doubt between two different plans 
of life, or two opposite courses of public or private con- 
duct, is justly to be regarded as the mark of a weak and 
indolent character, or a cloudy understanding. To halt 
between two opinions on a question involving the moral 
character of another, and the conduct which we ought to 
hold respecting him — one in which doubt takes on the 
form of suspicion or jealousy — would be intolerable to any 
one in whom the whole moral and sensitive nature had 
not become paralysed. There is no man of feeling or of 
honour, who would not in a similar case exclaim with 
Othello, 

Think' st thou I'd make a life of jealousy ? 
* ****** 
No, to be once in doubt, 
Is once to be r.esolved. 
I'U see before I doubt, when I doubt, prove. 

But, to have come to the conclusion, on any point of 
history, or on any speculative subject, that it must always 
remain involved in doubt, whether for want of conclusive 
j evidence in one case, or from the inherent obscurity of 
I the subject in the other, ought never to be made a theme 
i of reproach against any man, nor yet to become a source 
I of disquiet to a firm and rational mind, since no important 



54 DOUBT. 

consequences can by possibility be dependent on questions 
thus inscrutable. 

Let us reassure ourselves in our own insignificance. 
Nothing renders it necessary that we feeble mortals 
should strain ourselves with stretching upwards eagerly 
and vainly, as the drowning catch at straws, after truths 
hung high above our reach. The nature of deity, the 
plans of providence, ' fix'd fate, free will, fore-knowledge 
absolute ' — great and eternal as must be the verities 
involved in these questions — are yet nothing to us, nothing 
to our duties, nothing to our happiness. 

Now, much as it may humble an aspiring mind to find 
itself compelled to accept of doubts and difficulties as the 
sole result of its investigations into subjects the vastness 
of which has tempted only to confound its efforts, ought 
this effect to be lamented ? It, ' feelingly persuades us 
what we are,' how weak, how open to error, and from 
what various sources. It inculcates tolerance, the sole 
effective pacifier of social discords; it schools us into 
candour, the virtue of the experienced and the wise, and 
it bows the spirit to that genuine, heartfelt humility, 
which the dogmatist, of whatever sect or party, in vain 
lays claim to. Let us then accept it as a thoughtful and 
a precious saying, that ' he well has studied who has learnt 
to doubt.' 



MOTR'ES. 



Nothing more rare than to hear the true motives assigned 
by any person for any action of his life ! Even those who 
scruple falsehood in any other form, indulge without 
remorse or mthout reflection in the habit of assigning 
plausible reasons in the place of true ones. The boundless 
curiosity of mankind concerning the actions and the 
affairs of their neighbours, must bear the chief blame of 



MOTIVES. 55 

this pernicious and demoralising practice, 'Ask me no 
questions and I'll tell you no lies,' is a frequent saying, 
and one wMch habitual questioners would do well to take 
to heart. 

For example, I am idly and impertinently curious to 
know wherefore it is that you propose to change your 
place of abode. You dislike, or perhaps judge it inexpe- 
dient to confess that it is a measure of necessary retrench- 
ment ; and therefore in the common phrase you put it 
upon health, the desire to be within nearer reach of 
friends, or convenient distance from town. 

You are apprehensive lest your daughter should form 
an attachment which you disapprove, and you therefore 
drop the acquaintance of a particular family ; being in- 
discreetly urged for your reasons, you assign any but the 
true one. 

An intended journey of pleasure is given up, because 
the family party could not agree among themselves whe- 
ther to steam up the Rhine, or to make their way through 
Paris to Greneva. If they have the good sense to keep 
their domestic squabbles within doors, they will assure 
inquirers that the unsettled state of the weather, or that 
of the political aspect of the continent, deterred them from 
making the excursion. Such cases might perplex a sturdy 
moralist. It is at least certain that so long as impertinent 
questioning is not regarded as what it is, a social mis- 
demeanour of the gravest kind, and uniformly repelled 
with uncompromising sternness, so long will this mean 
and degrading kind of falsehood prevail, all but univer- 
sally. A practical inference of some importance is, that 
in judging a man by the motives which he publicly assigns 
for his conduct, we are pretty sure to be mistaken. Far 
more cogent ones may be presumed to lurk behind, and 
few people act on grounds so frivolous as they pretend 
to do. 



56 FRANKNESS. 



FRANKNESS. 

This quality is usually reckoned among the good ones, yet 
I confess that few characters attract me less, I might 
almost say repel me more, than one of which it is held 
forth as the leading feature. Frankness means freeness, 
and a free and voluntary declaration of abhorrence of my 
principles or disapprobation of my conduct may amount 
to so grave an outrage that self-respect admonishes me to 
shrink back from the man who may seem capable of such 
an aggression. Even where extremes like these are 
scarcely to be apprehended, I find nothing inviting either 
in the rudeness which disregards giving pain, the maHg- 
nity which finds a pleasure in it, or the obtuseness which 
gives pain without perceiving it. 

But this is not all ; and I have a deeper quarrel with 
the frank for their impenetrable reserve. There is no 
paradox in this, though it may at first wear the appear- 
ance of one. The rugged nature which is without sym- 
pathy for others, is little disposed on any occasion to claim 
theirs for itself; and where the feelings do not prompt to 
an opening of the heart, the ' wisdom for a man's self ' is 
always at hand to suggest the safer policy of keeping all 
close within. 

Further, should you venture with the frank man, at the 
slightest attempt to make an entrance into the penetration 
of his affairs, or hazard the gentlest criticism on his con- 
duct or behaviour, no man so prompt to take high offence, 
to tell you that his concerns are none of yours, or that 
your opinions have no weight with him. 

Such is the general case where the frankness is genuine, 
but it is not seldom assumed, and then serves as a cloak 
to qualities and designs more dangerous and still more 
odious. 



FRANKNESS. 5 7 

Shakspeare has sketched the character with his own 

inimitable touch — 

He can't flatter, he ! 
An honest man and plain, he must speak truth, 
An' they will take it so ; if not, he's plain. 
These kind of knaves I know, that in this plainness. 
Harbour more craft, and more corrupter ends, 
Than twenty silly ducking observants, 
That stretch their duties nicely. 



TEMPTERS. 



Imogen forgives her husband for the ordeal to which he 
had exposed her, as a woman all tenderness forgives 
where she loves. But the reader or the audience cannot 
forgive him, nor ought they. It is true that the poet has 
laboured with his master-hand to palliate the abominable 
wager by all the circumstances of temptation or provoca- 
tion with which it was possible to surround it ; but yet to 
expose a wife, deliberately and designedly to expose her 
to a trial of such a nature, must in any imaginable case 
be reprobated as an offence inexpiable. Similar wagers 
have been known in real life, and even in our own country, 
but they are so rare as well as revolting as scarcely to admit 
of being alluded to, except as the strongest illustration of 
a principle daily and hourly forgotten or overlooked. 

Which of us is guiltless of the crime of exposing others 
to that temptation into which everyone prays that he 
may not himself be led ? What master, what tutor, what 
parent even, watches himself on this point as he ought ? 
How much of the vices and crimes of men owe their origin 
to this neglect ? 

You, fair and delicate lady, who carelessly throw into 
an open drawer the copper money which it disgusts you 
to touch, and which is too heavy for your flimsy pocket, 
do you reflect that by this practice you are training up 



58 TEMPTEES. ' 

your dapper page for the house'of correction ? drawing on 
your under-housemaid tkrougli habits of petty pilfering to 
bolder thefts ending in loss of character and utter ruin ? 

You, sir or madam, who scatter your letters on the 
library table, or toss them into the elegant card-basket, 
know you not, that by thus tempting the natural curiosity 
of youth you are overthrowing in your children the sense 
of inviolable honour ? 

You, well meaning but mistaken mother or governess, 
who in the hope of making yourself mistress of the inmost 
thoughts of a child, urge it with questions which cannot 
be truly answered without an effort of courage to which 
its feeble spirit is unequal — learn that you are thus sow- 
ing in that tender bosom ineradicable seeds of artifice and 
falsehood. 

By the wisdom of our laws, the receiver of stolen goods 
is held more guilty than the thief, because he is in most 
cases the tempter. He tempts because it is his wicked 
trade ; but how many are there who give occasion to the 
commission of similar crimes, and incur like, and perhaps 
equal guilt for want of thought, for the sake of some 
trifling indulgence to their own convenience or indolence ; 
or for want of that universal sympathy which deserves to 
be cherished among the most precious dowers of humanity, 
since it is through this alone that it is given us to feel 
and understand what things utterly insignificant to our- 
selves may be irresistible temptations to our weEiker or 
less fortunate fellow-creatures ! 



POPULAR FALLACIES. 

Bentham gave to the world a list of fallacies well worth 
the attention of the pob'tician ; and Charles Lamb one of 
^ popular fallacies ' which amused all his readers : and the 



POPULAR FALLACIES. 59 

catalogue might readily be enlarged. For example, 
'Silence gives consent.' To a proposal of marriage 
perhaps : to an assertion, a narrative, or a proposition, 
decidedly No ! To conceive that it does is the cherished 
fallacy of those members of privileged orders enabled by 
sufferance to lay down the law in mixed society ; of the 
rich, the great, the celebrated, the dogmatical, the quarrel- 
some, and those who have the good fortune to be always 
on the strongest side. That silence dissents would be a 
safer rule. 

A man of consequence, perhaps a noble lord, in the 
narrative with which he has favoured the company of a 
late transaction has taken to himself credit which I may 
well know not to be his due — what then ? Shall I disturb 
the company and possibly make myself a dangerous enemy 
by interposing to set right a matter which is probably 
seen in its true light by others besides myself, and which 
is of no personal importance to any of us ? 

Shall I disconcert your dealer in hyperbole by exclaiming 
in the midst of his story, ^ Not half so large ! not nearly 
so often ! not a tenth of the number ! ' No, indeed, let 
those believe him who know no better. I hold my peace ; 

Preserve me from the thing I dread and hate, 
A duel in the form of a debate ; 

therefore, although I differ toto coelo from the political or 
the religious system of that furious partisan and loud 
declaimer, far be it from me to breathe one syllable of 
contradiction. How, indeed, should I even make myself 
audible ? 

It was remarked concerning a late very eminent Scottish 
writer, that he was fully sensible of the advantages of the 
laudatory system. If so, he was by no means alone in the 
perception ; it is shared by all true worldlings, and not- 
withstanding the imputation of censoriousness so largely 
brought against mankind by divines and moralists, it 



60 POPULAE FALLACIES. 

cannot be doubted tliat in general society far more is heard 
of unmerited eulogy than of groundless condemnation. 
But where do we find the lover of equal-handed justice 
bold or rash enough to strip from the miserable daw the 
borrowed plumage in which it has suited the interests or 
coincided with the prejudices of another to dress him out? 
Ignorance beyond all reach of instruction, prepossession 
which scarcely a miracle could convert, are left to take 
their own way by the tacit consent of reasonable people ; 
and whoever shall encounter in society a projector, a 
visionary, a man of one idea, a missionary of parallelograms, 
or a mesmerist, will do well to leave, and usually does 
leave, as free a course to him, as to an over-driven ox. 
From these premises it might be a fair, however starthng 
inference, that the uncontro verted duties of the best society, 
those to which its silence is universally held by the utterers 
to give consent, — represent errors rather than truths, vio- 
lence than candour, prejudice than reason, enthusiasm 
than wisdom, and cowardice, servility, or self-interest rather 
than the free judgments of enlightened and independent 
spirits. But what if some ' sturdy moralist ' should arise, 
and say that it is a duty to protest much oftener than we 
do, and even at the risk of giving offence and incurring 
detriment. That bigotry or selfishness should not be 
permitted to *bolt their arguments,' while philosophy and 
independence find ' no tongue to check their pride.' In 
that supposable case let such a moralist, or such a philan- 
thropist, take courage in the assurance that the hazard 
would be less, and the charm, both of ^'ictory and its reward, 
far greater than the timid or the indolent suffer themselves 
to imagine. Such of the hearers as may be already dis- 
sentients in their hearts will gladly echo the contradic- 
tion or refutation which one man has at length been found 
coiuageous enough to utter; others will become his 
converts; even those who are not gained over to his 



POPULAR FALLACIES. 61 

sentiments will inwardly respect his spirit. By such 
checks, the bullies, the dictators, and the sycophants who 
infest society, will be taught to stand in awe of that 
genuine public opinion which disdains to shroud itself in 
such an ignominious and little less than fraudulent silence, 
as is made to pass for unhesitating assent. 



WOKDS UPON WORDS. 

' What is it you read, my lord ? ' ' Words, words, words ! ' 
replies Hamlet, as who should say air, breath, sound, and 
emptiness. This always offended me. From my youth 
upwards, I have been a lover of words, a chooser of words, 
in a slender and superficial manner, a student of words, 
and instead of acquiescing in such disparagement, reducing 
them almost to * airy nothing,' I proclaim myself ready 
to maintain against all comers that words are things ; nay, 
and things of pith and moment, life and passion. Have 
we not the right word, the very word, the word of advice, 
the word in season, the word of comfort, the warning word, 
the cruel word, and the kind one ? And what are these but 
things ? How they fasten themselves on our memory, 
with a grasp never to be shaken off while life endures ! 
How our associations cling and swarm, and cluster round 
them ! How our hearts beat at the sound with recollected 
joy, grief, pity, hope, indignation, or gratitude ! Things ! 
Nay, I am more inclined to call them persons, in such vivid 
individuality of feature do they rise before 'the eye of 
mind.' Have they not also — at least the more distin- 
guished of their race — their pedigrees, their biographies, 
their private, sometimes their scandalous, histories and 
anecdotes ? Are there not among them ranks and degrees, 
nobles and commoners, decent people and rabble, natives 
and ahens, legitimates and illegitimates, pure breeds and 
mongrels ? 



62 WORDS UPON WORDS. 

A full and true history of words, including only those of 
our own country, might be made as long, perhaps, too, as 
full of instruction and entertainment, as a history of 
England itself. But what Hercules in literature would 
prove equal to the task ? The labour of a life would be 
lost in it, considering the multitude of collateral branches 
which it would shoot out, this way and that, upward and 
downward, into depths, into darkness, out of sight, and 
beyond all computation of distance. 

Hearken to the pregnant hint thrown out as he passes, 
by the philosophical historian of the ' Decline and Fall.' 
After observing that ' so sensible were the Eomans of the 
imperfection of valour without skill and practice, that in 
their language the name of an army was borrowed from 
the word which signifies exercise,' (exercitus ah exerci- 
tando) ; he adds in a note, ' There is room for a very 
interesting work, which should lay open the connection 
between the languages and manners of nations.' No doubt, 
for the field remains as open at the present day as fourscore 
years ago, when this suggestion was first offered. A 
curious exemplification of its truth might be drawn from 
the word itself, which gave occasion to the remark. In 
none of the modern tongues, formed by the conquering 
barbarians out of the corruption of the Latin, is this 
connection between exercise and an assemblage of warriors 
preserved. The rude boors whose undisciplined bravery 
had triumphed over the effeminacy of degenerate Rome, 
were content to call their fighting multitudes armies, 
whether from the instruments of defence and attack 
which they carried, or from the vigorous limbs which 
wielded them. The men-at-arms and their followers, who 
afterwards composed the feudal levies, formed a host, and 
the French chivalry, with their brilliant courage, would 
have escaped the disastrous defeat of Poictiers had they 
been formed, by due practice in the discipline of war, into 
an exercitus. 



WORDS UPON WORDS. 63 

How suggestive, again, is the Latin word virtus. De- 
rived from vir, it would best be rendered manliness, and 
among the martial barbarians of Rome, its meaning was 
limited at first to courage in war; but expanding by 
degrees under the mellowing influences of advancing 
civilisation, and the schools of Grreek philosophy, we hail 
it at length in the moral writings of Cicero, as the repre- 
sentative of every quality dear and venerable to mankind, 
or approved by the immortal gods. Transplanted into 
the languages of Christian Europe, it has retained its 
comprehensiveness, while its meaning has undergone 
modifications and improvements, derived from the doctrines 
of religion. That, in modern Italian, virtu should have 
been employed to signify taste in the objects of fine art, 
must be accounted an inexplicable caprice of language; 
for it can scarcely be conceived, that under the most cor- 
rupting and degrading influences, technical skill could 
have become confounded in any minds with moral excel- 
lence. 

Yet it is by an equally mysterious process that the 
Italian valore and our own word valour, from valeo, to be 
well, has come to stand for that high species of courage, 
which makes the closest approach to heroism. In the Italian, 
indeed, it extends to worth and excellence of every kind — 
to be * donna valorosa,' a woman of worth, is the highest 
praise which can be bestowed on a noble-minded lady ; 
and those who occupy the first rank in science or in art, are 
said to be persons ' di gran valore.' From the same root 
we have value, and the impurely formed word valuable. 

Words bearing a moral or intellectual signification are 
those whose transformations in their passage from age to 
age, or language to language, are the most suggestive. 
Of these, the word bigot offers a pregnant example. 
Camden, to whom English archaeology owes a deep debt 
of gratitude for his protection of her infancy, derives the 



64 WOKDS FPON WORDS. 

term from hy and God, and speaks of it as a kind of cant 
word, invented to stigmatise certain pretenders to devo- 
tion, who affected to have the sacred name perpetually on 
their lips. For the correctness of this etymology no one 
would now contend, but the explanation sufficiently 
attests the imputation of insincerity which we at this 
time attach to the word. In French dictionaries higot 
and cagot^ which is said to be only a variation of the 
term, are interpreted by * faux devot, hypocrite,' and the 
name is twice or thrice applied by Moliere to Tartuffe 
himself, ' Bigot,' says Dr. Johnson, ' is a man unreason- 
ably attached to a certain party, prejudiced in favour of 
certain opinions, a blind zealot ; ' and his authorities, 
Watts and Garth, support his definition. Under higotinj, 
however, he quotes this sentence from a letter of Pope's : 
'Our silence makes our adversaries think we persist in 
those bigotries which all good and sensible men despise.' 
Here the poet writing to his friend Mr. Blount, as catholic 
to catholic, evidently employs the word in its French 
signification of superstitious observances, cagotHes. In 
popular use we strongly attach to the term that accessory 
idea of malignity against those of differing opinions which 
is inseparable in all but the most genial natures from 
ardent zeal — at least for exclusive systems — but contrary 
to the French, from whom we received it, and in con- 
formity perhaps with our national character, we include 
in it the notion of sincerity. So completely, indeed, has 
this become a part of the idea, that the expression, ' a 
sincere bigot,' has been treated by high authority as a 
tautology. How far truth will justify us in thus investing 
with a robe of honour a character so mischievous, odious, 
and despicable, is a question well worth consideration, but 
not pertaining to the present argument. It suffices here 
to hint at the highly authorised conjunction of Pharisee 
and hypoci^ite. 



WORDS UPON WORDS. 65 

The word periwig, whence wig, is a ludicrous corruption 
of the name of the twisted shell, a periwinkle. In ' Hall's 
Satires,' the word is written periwinke, and seems to have 
meant a ringlet. Thus, in the accounts delivered of the 
articles purchased for the court revels in the first year of 
Edward VI,, there are charged * five coyffs of Venys gold 
with perukes of here.' From all authorities it may be 
inferred that wigs were invented rather to decorate the 
persons of the young and the gay, than to conceal the 
ravages of time on the heads of their elders ; they also 
appear to have been at first confined to female use. 
Queen Elizabeth, and other ladies after her example, 
delighted to adorn themselves in turn with ' seven or eight 
dressings of other women's hair,' while so ' prime a gallant ' 
of her court as Sir Christopher Hatton, judged it proper, 
on assuming the dignified character of Lord High Chan- 
cellor, to cover his graceful brows with a sober velvet 
cap ^like unto your honour's,' as Eobert Cecil wrote to 
his venerable father. 

In our original penury of words denoting mental powers 
or qualities, talent was welcomed by our best writers as a 
useful acquisition. The earliest authority quoted for it in 
Johnson's Dictionary is Lord Clarendon. Probably he 
borrowed it from the French, yet his occasional employ- 
ment of it as synonymous with disposition or inclination, 
is more conformable to the Italian, in which un strano 
talento is a strange fancy for any object, and to have mal 
talento towards a person is to bear him ill will. Thus his 
lordship observes that * the nation generally was without 
any ill talent to the church ' &c., but this sense has not 
prevailed. As the word was undoubtedly formed in allu- 
sion to the scripture parable of the talents put to use or 
buried in a napkin, it ought apparently to mean no more 
than a gift, or endowment; but this interpretation has 
not sufficed our ingenious neighbours. The French 

F 



66 WOEDS UPON WOEDS. 

synonjmists, far more metaphysical and less etymological 
than our own, have exhausted themselves in nice distinc- 
tions between talent and genius, and examples formed to 
exhibit the nature of each. Mackintosh, who, although a 
great constructor of rhetorical periods, and an eminent 
artist of conversation, was neither a student of the antiqui- 
ties of the English tongue, nor possessed of the genuine 
love of words essential to their successful investigation, 
has treated the subject in a similar spirit. The specimens 
of his verbal remarks which his biographer has appended 
to the most delightful of literary journals, are rather 
elaborate statements of mental facts, than contributions to 
grammatical or .philological science. Thus, he quotes 
with approval from a French authority, an explanation of 
talent as *the union of invention and execution;' but 
afterwards gives it as his own account of talents in the 
plural, that 'they are the power of executing well a 
conception either original or adopted,' and that 'they may 
be possessed in a degree very disproportioned to general 
power, as habit may strengthen a mind from one sort of 
exertion far above its general vigour, — a proposition 
which, correct as it may be, contributes nothing to the 
illustration of the word. This objection applies, it will 
be found, more or less to all verbal remarks destitute of 
a root firmly fixed in the deep soil of etymology. 

On the subject of talent, it may be worth wliile to 
observe, that the lower regions of our literature are still 
infested with the mock word talented, a verbal without a 
verb, said to have sprung forth half a century ago, with 
many other portents of like nature but opposite fortune, 
from the teeming brain of a 'Wild Irish Girl.' Twenty 
years have elapsed since Coleridge thus delivered himself 
respecting it : 'I regret to see that vile and barbarous 
vocable talented stealing out of the newspapers into the 
leading reviews and most respectable pubHcations of the 



WOEDS UPON WOKDS. 67 

day. Why not shillinged, farthinged, ten-penced, &c. 
The formation of a participle passive from a noun is a 
licence that notliing but a very peculiar felicity can 
excuse. If mere convenience is to justify such attempts 
upon the idiom, you cannot stop till the language becomes 
in the proper sense of the word, corrupt.'* Let the perpe- 
trators of such enormities as industrial, educational, and 
illuminational lay to heart this warning! But, alas, 
what care utilitarians for the purity or the grace of our 
noble tongue? Talky, talky, would serve their turn 
better than Cicero's Latin, or the French of Voltaire. 

It is with a kind of simple wonder, sufficiently amusing 
from such a quarter, that Mackintosh makes the remarkthat 
' in Minshew's " Dictionary of Nine Languages," printed 
in 1627, there are no such words as genius or talent. Wit 
is the only word for mental power ; and it is rendered in 
French by esprit, and m German by verstand, which is 
understanding.' No doubt; in the age of Minshew it 
could not be otherwise. The earliest authority given by 
Johnson for genius, in this sense, is Addison, and so far 
was it from being established in his day, that in the ' Tatler ' 
itself, the word is written after the Italian, genio. 

Anthony a Wood, a supreme authority in the vulgar 
tongue, in his ^ Athense,' published in 1689, often celebrates 
in his heroes, ' a poetical geny,'' It should appear that 
our adoption either from the French or the Italians of 
this signification of genius^ must have been connected, 
either as cause or effect, with the new restriction of the 
word wit to its present peculiar meaning. This meaning 
is indeed one which it had long borne — as Falstaff says: 
' I am both witty myself and the cause that other men are 
witty,' but in this application it falls far short of being the 
equivalent of esprit. The limitation was evidently not 
fully drawn in 1647, when Cowley's Poems first appeared, 

* Table Talk, ii. 63. 
f2 



68 WORDS UPON WOEDS. 

for although in some passages of his ' Ode on Wit,' he may 
seem to understand the word exactly in the modern sense, 
the concluding lines are decisive of the contrary : 

If any ask me then 
What thing right wit and height of genius is, 
I'll only show your lines and say, 'tis this ; 

implying that the two terms stood for one and the same 
thing. The notion evidently corresponds with that so ill- 
explained by Pope in the lines — 

True wit is nature, to advantage drest ; 

What oft was thought, but ne'er so weU exprest. 

where, though it is difi&cult to conceive what is meant by 
Nature, the thing described is clearly the opposite of that 
true wit of which a new and striking thought fonns the 
essence, and indeed no other than what was styled jine 
writing. In the inimitable papers of Addison ' On true 
and false Wit,' we first find this quality, according to our 
present idea of it, so delineated as to preclude all miscon- 
ception, and illustrated by a profusion of the thing itself 
in its most genuine form. Thus then, it is to Addison we 
owe both ivit and genius — apt appropriation ! But in 
those idiomatic phrases which are the most enduring part 
of language, the old sense survives, and we still possess in 
full vigour ' mother wit,' and ' the wit of man ; ' we are 
still ' at our wits end,' and sometimes ' out of our wits.' 
We have also the proverb, ^ an ounce of mother-wit is 
worth a pound of clergy,' the last word bearing here the 
sense of learning ^ as in ' benefit of clergy,' a phrase which, 
already obsolete in law, may in time it is to be hoped 
become as unintelligible to common readers as the arro- 
gant claims out of which it arose. Such was the scanti- 
ness of our vocabulary, that our elder writers sometimes 
employ the word wit to designate the senses as well as the 
understanding : ' In our last conflict,' says Beatrice, 
referring to the ' merry war ' between herself and Benedick, 



WORDS UPON WORDS. 69 

* four of liis five wits went halting off, and now is the 
whole man governed with one; so that if he have wit 
enough to keep himself warm, let him bear it for a 
difference between himself and his horse.' We have also 
in Lear ' Bless thy five wits,' It was indeed high time to 
seek some expedient for increasing our fund of verbal 
wealth in this direction. 

Philologists, since the great discovery in grammar made 
by Home Tooke, are unanimously agreed that every word 
was originally significative and had a sensible idea for its 
root. For this reason it was that the eminent scholar 
Grilbert Wakefield, who was employed on the great work 
of a Grreek and English dictionary, at the too early termi- 
nation of his honourable course, maintained that a good 
word could have no more than two meanings — a literal 
and a metaphorical one. Still more rigid on this point 
was the learned, humorous, and eccentric Dr. Greddes. 
The most impetuous of disputants, though one of the most 
kind-hearted of men, he would do battle on a question of 
etymology as if life and death had hung on the issue ; 
while such was his resolute and systematic opposition to 
all metaphorical uses of words, that he would declare 
against employing understanding in any other sense than 
standing under. He had other notions on words not less 
peculiar. Thus, in his version of the Old Testament, 
magnanimously setting at nought, where system was 
concerned, all such minor considerations as the influence 
of custom or the power of association, he was resolute in 
the substitution of the more graphic term Skipover for 
that of Passover. 

But vain are efforts such as these to reduce ^ custom of 
speech to congruity of speech.' 'It is not,' observes 
Hobbes, ' the universal current of divines and philosophers 
that giveth words their authority, but the generality of 
them who acknowledge that they understand them.' Even 



70 WORDS UPON WOEDS. 

the unanimous agreement of grammarians and critics, a 
race proverbial for their differences, would fail to achieve 
this more than heroic labour. Etymology itself is far 
from numbering amongst the certain sciences. 

The farther research is carried, into whatever language, 
the more unfathomable become those gulfs of antiquity 
into which its origins are seen to open. The roots both 
of the Grreek and the German have been traced to the 
Sanscrit — Sanscrit, of which it cannot even be conjectured 
how many ages have revolved since it was a living tongue. 
And had the Sanscrit no parent? Who can answer? 
What we know certainly in this matter is, that for centuries 
upon centuries, words have been suffering so much of 
transformation, disguise and corruption, by accident, error 
and caprice, learned and unlearned, — by the licences of 
poets, the figures of orators, the affectations of pedants 
and coxcombs, the blunders of travellers, and the innova- 
tions of colonists — that in numberless instances their 
radical idea is lost beyond hope of retrieval, and all that 
can be done is to make use of them like technical terms, 
standing for some single definite notion to be learned by 
practice alone. 

The most skilful of etymologists must be baffled by at 
least one class of words, and that no small one ; consisting 
of such as have been adopted from an accidental associa- 
tion, and thus depend for their interpretation not on 
philological skill but on the knowledge of some particular 
fact or circumstance. Of these, several curious examples 
occur. Among the splendid donations showered by our 
eighth Henry on Wolsey during his lease of favour, was a 
stately mansion which had come into his possession by the 
attainder of the obnoxious Empson. It stood a little 
beyond the boundary wall of London, with gardens 
stretching down to the river, adorned with a beautiful 
spring on which a chapel stood, dedicated to St. Bridget. 
The Emperor Charles V. held his court within its spacious 



WORDS UPON WORDS. 71 

walls during his visit to England, and in it the divorce 
suit between Henry and Katherine came to a solemn 
hearing. On the fall of Wolsey it reverted to the crown. 
Young King Edward, on certain representations made to 
him of the necessity of the case, liberally granted it to the 
corporation of London for the purposes of a house of cor- 
rection, and hence our generic term — a Bridewell. 

By another odd misappropriation of a name, a group of 
buildings near Charing Cross, in which the king's hawks 
with their attendants were anciently lodged, and which 
was therefore called the Mews, being converted, on the 
decline of falconry, into a receptacle for the royal carriages 
and horses, not only retained its old appellation, but has 
communicated it to all the ranges of coach-houses and 
stabling in London. Our language possessing no equiva- 
lent to the French term remises, convenience seized on 
this, and made it her own. A Eepository for horses has 
surely somewhat of grotesque in the sound. 

In the time of James I. a personage made his appearance 
in London, announcing himself as the bearer of a com- 
mission from the Grrand Signior, and decorated with the 
title of a Chiause, which in those days of ignorance was 
imagined to signify an officer of exalted rank. After prey- 
ing for a time on the hospitality and generosity of the 
credulous, the impostor vanished, but he is said to have 
bequeathed to us, orthography being then of small account, 
in outlandish words especially, the familiar verb to chouse, 
Ben Jonson thus refers to this person in the ' Alchemist.' 

What do you think of me, 

That I am a Chiause ? 
Face. What's that? 
Dapper. The Turk was here, 

As one would say, ' Do you think I am a Turk ? ' 
Face. Come, noble doctor, pray thee let's prevail ; 

This is the gentleman, and he's no Chiause. 

One that will thank you richly, and he is no Chiause. 

Such allusive expressions are the cross of translators. 



72 WOKDS UPON WOEDS. 

Priestley, in one of his chemical papers had observed in 
reference to some fact concerning the gases, that ' the ex- 
periment of the Black Hole ' had proved it. He went 
soon after to Paris, when his French translator, himself a 
man of science, thus eagerly accosted him : ' Pray Doctor, 
what is that Black Hole of yours ? I rendered it of course 
le trou Thoir, but of the meaning I have not the most distant 
conception.' It is not quite impossible that in the present 
generation, there may be even English readers unac- 
quainted with the tragical history of the Black Hole of 
Calcutta, since all things fade sooner or later from memory, 
if not from record. 

In the language of Portugal marmala means a quince. 
It is, therefore, absurd to give the name of mamnalade to 
sweetmeat made from oranges or apples, not from quinces. 
This corruption, however, preserves the memory of the 
fact that it was from the Portuguese, early culivators of 
the sugar cane, both in their Oriental and Occidental set- 
tlements, that we first learned the art of confectionery. 
Thus a nearly contemporary describer of the court of 
Queen EHzabeth says of the ladies who attended on her : 
' There is in manner none of them but when they be at 
home can help to supply the ordinary want of the kitchen 
with a number of delicate dishes of their own devising, 
wherein the Portingale is their chief counsellor.' * 

Sometimes, by the derivation of a word, our thoughts 
are transported, as at the waving of a wand, from the 
most familiar objects of modern life down among the 
depths of primitive barbarism. The ancient Britons 
transmitted to us our baskets, called bascanda by their 
Eoman conquerors ; and from the British crowed, the elbow, 
came out jostling crowds, as well as an obsolete kind of 
fiddle called a crowd. From the Anglo-Saxon verb 
stellan, to put or place, probably comes the stUl-rooTii of 
* Bohan's character of Queen Elizabeth. 



WOKDS UPON WORDS. 73 

our great houses. If it be to the verb sellan of the same 
language, to give or supply, that we owe our salt-sellars 
the orthography ought to preserve the meniory of so 
venerable an origin. 

A very slight attention to the meaning of words would 
preserve us from making infusions — of roses, of sage, or 
other herbs ; and, still more absurd, of beef into teas, but 
such kitchen errors are little worth noting. Far more 
offensive is the absurd polysyllabic affectation by which all 
sorts, kinds, and classes, have hecome descriptions of things. 
This barbarism, which it would be amusing to attempt 
to translate into any civilised language, smacks strongly of 
man-millinery, and was probably invented by one of those 
persuasive orators who declaim to the ladies from behind 
their counters on muslins, silks and ribbons. Let it return 
to the shop whence it came. 

Polite euphemism, the source of so many moral as 
well as philological misnomers, has introduced the practice 
of employing the word limited in the sense of small or 
scanty. Its chief use was to stand as a screen before two 
things of which no honest man ought to be ashamed — 
poverty, and school-keeping. Limited incomes — as if 
even the most enormous ones were unlimited — and limited 
numbers of pupils were mincingly prattled of. While 
this contemptible fashion was still a novelty, a man of 
learning, wit and spirit, was thus condescendingly ad- 
dressed on his introduction to a commercial Croesus of 

mean mind and silken phrase, ' I believe, Mr. , you 

have a seminary for young gentlemen ? ' 'I keep a boy's 
school, sir.' ' A limited number, I presume.' ' No, all's 
fish that comes to my net.' 

By imperceptible degrees, to consider, has nearly lost 
in current speech the sense which it bore when we ' con- 
sidered our ways and applied our hearts unto wisdom.' 
We now consider that song to have been well sung; 



74 WORDS UPON WORDS. 

consider red hair a misfortune ; consider a goose a fine 
bird (omitting for expedition's sake the as, by which this 
verb was once followed). Thus have we degraded to the 
mere office of opining or believing, one of the highest 
and gravest words in our language ; respectable too in all 
its derivatives and affinities, such as considerate, consider- 
able, and consideration ; excepting only in the memorable 
phrase ^ for a con-sider-ation.' It is also a word for which 
we have no substitute. 

Till very lately it was the exclusive office of grand 
juries to ignore ; but whether the present extension of 
that often very convenient privilege to all classes of Her 
Majesty's subjects be not a somewhat laudable innovation, 
may be fit to be considered. 

The present generation will probably hear with surprise 
that there may be still living witnesses and partakers of 
that universal roar with which the House of Commons 
greeted the first utterance within its walls of the strange 
word starvation^ proceeding from the lips of no less con- 
spicuous a personage than Mr. Henry Dundas. Partly 
the grotesque sound of this barbarous hybrid, partly the 
whimsical notion of a new word for hunger and famine 
imported from Scotland, so tickled the fancies of honour- 
able members, that the laughter threatened to become 
inextinguishable as that which shook Olympus at sight of 
Vulcan in the office of Hebe. Even now, after a deni- 
zation of half a century, an English classic would assuredly 
exclude the mongrel with disdain from any work destined 
to outlast the date of a Blue-Book, or the report of a 
charitable institution. 

A similar occasion of mirth arose in the Lower House, 
when some statement of numbers made by a member 
having been disputed, he exclaimed, ^ I am certain I am 
correct, for I noted down the figures at the time with my 
keelovine,'' A general stare as well as titter ensued. 



WORDS UPON WORDS. 75 

Members from the North of England did indeed recognise 
at once their familiar term for a black lead pencil, but 
the word not being, it should seem, Scotch, it was con- 
demned without mercy as a provincialism and vulgarism. 
By some curious enquirer it will here perhaps be asked 
what may be the ground, or the plea, for this recognised 
privilege granted to the popular idioms of the northern, 
above those of the southern banks of the Tweed ? Our 
Caledonian neighbours would not hesitate to answer, that 
before the union, Scotland had a distinct tongue of her 
own, which is not to be confounded with mere dialects of 
the English ; also, that Dr. Jamieson, within the present 
century, published in two goodly quarto volumes, a 
' Dictionary of the Scottish language.' To this plea, it is 
obvious to reply on the English part that, allowing the 
ancient speech of Scotland for a different language from 
our own, it must be a manifest corruption to mingle them. 
But that Dr. Jamieson's work has no claim whatever to 
its lofty title, is evident on the very face of it, from the 
care which he takes to assign every word exclusively 
Scotch, to its native county. It is, in fact — what is a 
great desideratum with ourselves — a collection of pro- 
vincial dialects, and nothing more. The written language 
of Scotland, that of her early literature, her court and her 
aristocracy, has long since merged in that of Great Britain ; 
and the vulgar idioms of Ayrshire or Lothian have 
assuredly no inherent right to a toleration, in books or in 
conversation, refused to those of Lancashire or Devon. 
But the privilege accorded to Scotland in this respect 
stands on higher ground. It has been won for her by the 
excellence — not indeed of her graver prose writers, nor 
yet of her more polished versifiers, from Drummond to 
Thomson and Beattie, all of whom came as near to the 
English tongue as they were able — but by her truly 
national poets, and her novelist of world-wide fame. 



/b WORDS UPON WORDS. 

Possessed from early times of a national music, the 
country was rich in ancient ballads and in popular songs, 
which embodied in the racy idioms of a mother- toDgue 
the traditions of the past, and the fresher inspirations of 
passion, of fancy, and of humour. In this rustic dialect, 
imperfectly spelled out, there was found, or fancied, a 
character of mingled simplicity, tenderness and archness, 
which happily corresponded with the pastoral style, so 
long the delight, or pretended delight, of the whole of 
lettered and polished Europe. By favour of this adapta- 
tion it was that Allan Kamsay's partial translation, imi- 
tation, or depravation rather, of the most graceful and 
refined of the Italian Favole Roschareccie — the ' Aminta' of 
Tasso — became popular in England, and even his songs 
found admirers ; an uncouth dialect veiling in some degree 
their intolerable vulgarity and grossness. 

Percy's ' Reliques,' the most popular of poetical collec- 
tions, and one which effected a signal revolution in literary 
taste, owed the larger and more interesting portion of its 
ditties to the bards of the ' North countrie', on which ever 
side of the border. The repulsiveness of consulting a 
glossary was surmounted for their sake; and thus the 
Northumbrian English, and the lowland Scotch, idioms 
which most nearly approached each other, while their 
respective speakers continued hereditary foes, became 
alike familiar to the numerous admirers and the swarm of 
affected imitators of the ancient ballad. 

Burns next arose — a poet always, but twice a poet 
when he trusted himself with his native Doric, which 
found favour for his sake, even in Attic ears. The 
'Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border' followed; then 
*The Lay of the Last Minstrel,' and the rest of that 
brilliant group of metrical romances struck off with such 
dazzling rapidity on the same glowing anvil — finally the 
* Waverley novels.' 



WORDS UPON WORDS. 77 

During the Scott mania to which the English public 
was wrought up by these powerful and repeated efforts, 
which survived for many years the last and mightiest 
' master of the spell,' it was not perceived that we were 
negligently losing sight of the ancient land-marks of the 
neighbour tongues; nay, that we were suffering our 
very bulwarks and fortresses to become Scottish colonies 
and dependencies, through a process of settlement and 
occupation not unlike that by which we have seen Texas 
and other portions of Mexico transmuted into a territory 
of the United States. Our own people were turning 
Scotch without knowing it. We began to allow the 
macaronic of the Edinburgh Eeview for actual English ! 
Instead of acting on behalf of another it was for his behoof. 
Staircases, or pairs of stairs, were totally disused and we 
were left to ascend by a stair as fully more convenient. 
Friends looked over the window, and joined each other on 
the street. Forgetful of our honest old idiom ' this here ' 
and ' that there ' we ceased to perceive any clear difference, 
however the confusion might perplex us, between this and 
that, these and those. Inroads and incursions, eruptions 
and invasions, were all metamorphosed into raids and 
forays, and transplanted by writers, too, of no inconsider- 
able pretensions, into historical narratives of distant times 
and other countries. A species of anachronism and ab- 
surdity scarcely less gross than that committed by Cowper 
in his translation of Homer, where he repeatedly men- 
tions tapestry by the name of arras ! In fine, our very 
instinct of shall and will, should and would, began to 
waver, and we were left to get out of this sad scrape not as 
well as we could, but as we best might. At length there 
are encouraging tokens of the decline of this insidious 
epidemic. No recent cases have been observed, and we 
might now be beginning to congratulate ourselves on a 
happy return to vernacular soundness, but for the alarm- 



78 WORDS UPON WORDS. 

ing visitations of another and a far worse contagion — not a 
brogue, not a dialect; a contraband importation from 
some province, respectable though obscure, from innocent 
cottages, or simple rustic farms, where genuine Anglo- 
Saxon lingers still — but a pestilence drawn forth, reeking 
and flagrant, from the metropolitan dens of all abomina- 
tion and corruption, moral and physical, and philological. 
It is, in short, slang, which has dared to intrude itself 
into common speech, and the literature of the million. 
Slang, a term imknown as yet to dictionary or glossary, 
but which a very high authority has taken the laudable 
precaution to interpret to the ignorant and the innocent. 
It is derived, he informs us, from the verb to sling, and 
designates the idiom of those whose career is likely to 
terminate in suspension. WTiat more is to be said ! 

In the selection of words for the purposes of elegant 
literature, as in the details of every art which appeals to 
the imagination or the lieart through the sense of the 
beautiful, association is very nearly all in all. Let a word 
of the purest origin and most irreproachable connections, 
once have been compelled to stoop to low company, or 
base offices, and it loses caste once and for ever. Its 
sentence of perpetual exile from elegant society is like 
that of the favourite yellow starch from the court of King 
James, after it had adorned the person of Mrs. Turner, 
its inventress, at her final public appearance — on the 
scaffold. 

The excellent old critic Puttenham, in his 'Art of 
Poetry,' shows a fine sense of the seemly and ' decent ' in 
this matter. He severely censures one translator of Virgil 
for saying ' that .^neas was fain to trudge out of Troy, 
which term better became to be spoken of a beggar, or 
of a rogue, or of a lackey ; ' and he blames another, who 
had called that hero * by fate a fugitive,'* and enquired 
' WTiat moved Juno to tug so great a captain ? ' a word. 



WORDS UPON WORDS. 79 

^the most indecent word in this case that could have 
been devised, since it is derived from the cart, and signi- 
fies the draught or pull of the horses.' He reprobates the 
expression, ' sl prince's ^6^^,' ' because pelf means properly 
the scraps or shreds of tailors or of skinners.' 

Robert Southey who, if equalled, was certainly unex- 
celled among his contemporaries as a master of a pure, 
correct, and graceful English prose, instances, in one of 
his excellent letters to William Taylor of Norwich, the 
verb to spar as a word ruined for all better purposes by 
its application to pugilistic contests. On the other hand, 
we may be certain that neither his critical nor his moral 
taste would have sanctioned such a compliance with the 
slang of sporting men as could allow public meetings of 
any greater dignity than a walking match or a steeple 
chase, to come off, 

A living language may be viewed as a running com- 
mentary on the history of the manners and the pursuits of 
every passing age, and we are sometimes startled to learn 
how recent are several of those words which now seem as 
familiar and necessary to us as our daily bread. What 
Englishman almost would believe — at least until according 
to the genius of his nation, as Voltaire said, he had laid 
and lost a good wager on the point — that the words selfish 
and selfishness are not to be found in Shakspeare, and 
were indeed totally unknown to all his contemporaries ? 
Yet such is the unquestionable fact. Bishop Hacket, in 
his Life of Archbishop Williams, mentions selfish as a 
Puritanical term ; and in a political letter, bearing the 
earlier date of 1640, the words selfish and drill, in the 
sense of exercising soldiers, are ridiculed as newly-invented 
cant words of the Scotch covenanters. From this 
parentage it is probable that the first of these which now 
gives a name to the very cardinal principle on which 
systems of ethics and metaphysics have been made to 



80 WORDS UPON WORDS. 

turn, was originally notMng more than an abbreviation 
of self-seeking, a well-known term in the religious phrase- 
ology of the godly of that period, and perhaps not yet 
disused. 

Drill was probably of continental origin, and likely to 
have been imported by Lesley and his fellow warriors 
when they returned from fighting the battles of the Pro- 
testant hero Grustavus Adolphus, to set their countrymen 
in array against King Charles and his ^Anglicane episco- 
pacy.' 

Those lazy ages, lost in sleep and ease, 

Such whose supine felicity but makes 

In story charms, in epochas mistakes ; 

O'er whom Time gently shakes his wings of down. 

Till with his silent sickle they are mown, 

are the golden days of pedantry and affectation, in style and 
in diction. Every man is then at leisure to study not 
only, and not so much what' he should say, as after what 
form and figure he shall say it. The satire of Shak- 
speare indefatigably reproduced in so many shapes and 
characters, is sufficient proof of this corruption of taste in 
the ' piping times ' of Elizabeth and the first James. By 
the political storms of the ensuing reign these and all 
other shining fripperies were swept to dust and oblivion. 
The pure and simple English of the public papers and 
parliamentary speeches of the days of King Charles, elo- 
quent and pathetic in its earnestness alone, is still a noble 
and interesting study for the statesman and the orator. 
In the court of his successor, language, like manners and 
public principle, reached their lowest point of declension. 



LETTERS. 



To Mrs. Aihin, 

Stoke Newington: Nov. 1805. 
We do grumble a little, my dear"^ mother, I assure you, 
at being so long without you ; but knowing how very much 
you are wanted where you are, we think it would be 
wrong to press yom* return sooner than the day you 
mention, against which time I will take care to have all 
preparations made. Well ! what do you all say to this 
glorious dear-bought victory ? Twenty ships for a hero ! 
At this rate I think our enemies would be beggared first. 
But never was there a more affecting mixture of feelings. 
Even the hardhearted underwriters assembled at Lloyds to 
hear the news, could not stand it; when the death of 
Nelson was proclaimed, they one and all burst into tears. 
It is thought that the Londoners will put on mourning 
without any public orders. The illumination of the public 
offices last night was splendid, but many private streets 
were not lighted up at all, so much did sorrow prevail 
over triumph. No windows, it is said, were broken, and 
some of the mob cried out, * ^\^lat, light up because Nelson 
is killed ! ' N obody can, or ought to pity him, however, 
for what hero ever died a death more glorious ? They 
say that he saw fifteen ships strike before he fell. 

My father has been attending Peggy Woods for two or 

G 



82 LETTEES. 

three days past, and I do not know whether he is quite 
glad to have her well again ; he said she looked so very 
pretty in her night-cap. Just now a man called to enquire 
if we wanted any pork, saying that he was a person who 
had lived with Mr. Belsham. I felt the force of the 
recommendation (Mr. B. always paid great attention to 
the fatting of his pigs, I know), and finding that it was 
the size you like, I desired him to bring some to-morrow, 
when, if I think it nice, I shall get a leg to salt. I 
thought I should have laughed when I went to speak to 
the man, but I behaved very prettily. I forgot to tell 
you that we made a very brilHant figure at the illumination. 
Thanks to Fanny's love for the tars, we were lighted up 
sooner than most of our neighbours. The book-meeting 
was put off on account of the illumination. 

I can't think of anything else to say, except that 
Edmund has made a most beautiful drawing of Mr. Hope's 
statue gallery, which has delighted him much. I have 
written four new lines and planned a great many more. 
The Greography is all printed but the index, which my 
father has made and pasted, with my help. I have weighed 
out all the bullace and sugar for preserving, with my own 
hands. Adieu, my dear mother. My father joins in love 
&c. with your very affectionate daughter, 

L. A. 

To Mrs. Barbauld. 

Edinburgh: Nov. 1811. 
My dear Aunt — It will, I know, give you pleasure to 
hear immediately from myself of all that I am doing and 
enjoying in this new and animating scene. You will 
believe that I find much to gratify both the eye and the 
mind in the grand situation and picturesque views of this 
great city — in its ancient remains and its modern improve- 



TO MRS. BARBAULD. 83 

ments. I have climbed the Calton and the Castle Hills ; 
I have wondered at the tower-like houses of the old town, 
admired the spacious streets and noble squares of the new ; 
moralised in the gloomy apartments where the exiled 
Bourbons found refuge in the deserted palace of the 
Stuarts; and shuddered on exploring the dark narrow 
staircase whence the murderers of Eizzio rushed upon 
their victim. 

As to the society from which I have expected, and still 
expect, so much, I have not yet quite got into the spirit 
of it. I cannot expect strangers to give up their mental 
treasures at sight. The ceremonies of introduction, the 
questions of routine, how I came, when I came, and how 
I like Edinburgh, with many more, must iirst be patiently 
submitted to. At present, I only seem to have the figures 
of a magic lantern flitting before my eyes, but the number 
and the variety afford perpetual amusement. Take the 
visitors of one morning as a specimen. At breakfast 
arrives, just imported from the Highlands, a minister of 
the kirk, of a stern visage and stiff address, who begs a 
blessing on the meal unasked, and on some mention being 
made of the Duke of Queensbury, solaces himself greatly 
with the conviction that he is now roasting. He takes his 
leave, and enter a fine flourishing colonel; his son has 
obtained from the Emperor of Eussia the appointment of 
physician to some new baths in Circassia, and he is just 
giving us an interesting account of his journey from Mos- 
cow of 1,800 miles, when he is interrupted by two elegant 
daughters of Lord Woodhouselee. They give place to a 
plain Scotch advocate, who gives us a ludicrous account 
of his distress at a London lodging-house, where nobody 
could make barley-broth and he was forced to attempt it 
himself, with indifferent success. Two excellent Miss 
Hills, who devote themselves to the care of a brother's 
children, and a London-bred lady, with three dirty dogs, 

G 2 



84 LETTERS. 



I 



finish the exhibition for that day. My account of these 
characters has been broken in upon by Lord Buchan, a 
more complete character than any of them. He desires 
me to say something very handsome for him to you. 
Moreover, he has got it into his head that you wrote some 
verses on Dryburgh Abbey, sitting on the ruins, which he 
begs to see if they exist; and moreover, again, he has 
made me promise, and I hope you will not be displeased, 
to transcribe your lines on the King, for him to send to the 
Princess Mary. He retains a lively recollection of ' that 
pretty little winch,' as he calls her, and a still more 
lively wish to see you again in Scotland. I have seen a 
good deal of Mrs. Grrant,* and she both amuses and wearies 
me ; she talks a vast deal in a low drawling voice, inter- 
spersing abundance of parentheses and digressions ; but 
her narratives and remarks display fancy and feeling, and 
have an interesting air of originality — in short, she is 
exactly like her letters. With Dr. Brown, Dugald 
Stewart's successor, I had one evening some pleasant 
conversation ; he is clever and lively, but has an unfor- 
tunate flippancy of manner, and laughs w^henever he 
speaks. Dr. Thomson, the chemical, who inquired kindly 
for Arthur and Charles, pleases me best of all the men I 
have seen, and his wife, a daughter of Professor Miller, 
appears to me a most agreeable woman. 

Mrs. Hamilton has been so poorly since my arrival that 
I have seen her but once, but her sister and their visitor, 
Miss McLean, spent an evening here and made it a very 
pleasant one. The Highland minister told us that the 
clan McLeod are offended with Miss Baillie's representation 
of their ancestor, and that theiv poet has written a long- 
Erse ballad giving a quite different account of the 
matter. He was himself well acquainted vdih the tra- 
ditions about it, and had once been nearly cast away on 

^ Mrs. Grant of Laggau. 



TO MRS. BARBAULD. 85 

the lady^s rock. The feeling of clanship is still strong, 
and so much of old manners remain, that I hear of 
a laird now living who is quite as savage and much less 
generous than Eoderic Dhu. 

Pray tell my father that I will write to him very soon — 
as soon, that is, as I have matter for another letter. 
Your grateful and affectionate 

L. AlKTN. 

To Dr. Aikin, 

Edinburgh: Dec. 18, 1811. 

And pray have you the conscience to expect that I should 
remember certain old-fashioned people in the village of 
Stoke Newington, amidst all the honourable and right 
honourable society to which I have had the honour of being 
admitted ? Though you would not think magnificently of 
my last large sheet, I think you must of this, considering the 
grandeur of the subject. At Lady Apreece's we had a very 
agreeable and elegant party — a pretty olio of red coats and 
blue coats — a charming mixture of people of fashion and 
people of literature. The widow of Professor Dalzell, and 
Dr. Brown, were those who pleased me best that night. But 
what were the splendours of that evening to the glories of 
last Saturday at Mrs. Clavering's I Mr. C. is the elder 

brother of the noted general C , his wife is a sister of 

Mr. Adair the envoy, and both are very highly connected. 
"We calculated on our return that there were more ladies 
above than below the rank of baronets' daughters, and the 
gentlemen were m ostly of title or high family. I thought 
their manners very elegant, and saw much graceful danc- 
ing, in which, from conscious inferiority, I declined taking 
a part. 'Tell me what you think of that gentleman's 
physiognomy,' whispered Mrs. Fletcher, ^ and I will tell 
you a story of him.' He was beyond my ken, so I lost 



86 LETTERS. 

the opportunity of displaying my skill in that certain 

science, but I got the story. Mr. C , second son of a 

gentleman of large estate, is an advocate, and a man ad- 
mitted in the first circles. Some years ago he went to 
call one day on Sir Charles Douglas ; he was shown into 
Sir Charles's dressing-room, and when Sir Charles came to 

him he found Mr. C examining his pocket-book, which 

he had left on the table. ' What are you doing ? ' cried 

Douglas. ' I am searching for billets-doux/ returned C . 

They were both gay young fellows and very intimate, so 
the thing passed very well as a joke till the evening, when 
Douglas, applying to his pocket-book for some bank-notes, 
found that they had all vanished, to the value of 251. 
He did not know the numbers, but they were of the Bank 
of England, which are little in circulation here ; his in- 
quisitive friend, he learned, had passed two of that 
description that very day. Sir Charles did not scruple to 

report that C had picked his pocket. C finding 

himself shunned by his brother advocates, at last learned 
the cause. He hurried to London and challenged Doug- 
las. Next day a statement appeared in the papers signed 
by the seconds — very 'honourable men' — stating that 
both parties had behaved with perfect honour, and had 

parted without fighting I C is received again in 

society, and the story of the pocket-book remains as it was. 
Such are the great ! and therefore I was not displeased to 
find myself last night in a humbler set, at the house of Mr. 
Fergusson, an advocate ; where I had some pleasant chat 
with a son of Professor Miller, also a lawyer, and a very 
shrewd and intelligent, as well as worthy man, but so 
gTave and abstracted that one can seldom get much out 
of him. To-night I am to drink tea and play chess with 
Mrs. Hamilton, and sup at Mrs. Grant's, where I am to 
meet Jeffrey for the first time. I am now quite habituated 
to the hours we keep, and never indulge myself in taking 



TO DR. AIKIN. 87 

breakfast in bed. At half-past eight Mr. Fletcher causes 
a wakening peal to be rung, which rouses me, and I am 
often the first in the breakfast-room. Grrace, however, is 
a pretty good riser, and one morning, by way of brag, I 
gave her a Latin lesson before anybody else made their 

appearance. You may believe that this same G 

makes a charming pupil. I fain would teach her ' all I 
know,' and therefore gave her the other day a practical 
lesson in the art of custard-making, in which Mrs. 
Fletcher had been lamenting the ignorance of her cook. 
I never feel the value of the knowledge that you and my 
dear mother have been at such pains to instil into me so 
much as when I am among strangers, and iind myself 
capable of improving them in something useful or orna- 
mental. Then, when I meet with any commendations, and 
people say, * How did you learn it ? ' what a proud delight 
have I in answering — my father taught me this, my 
mother that — one of my brothers informed me of such a 
thing — in short, not only the foundation-stone, but every 
other in the fabric of my mind and manners w^as laid by 
an honoured and a loving hand — no mercenary touched 
it! 

As to the weather in this part of the world, I will not 
pretend to give you my opinion ; but that of the natives, 
which I have carefully collected from various authorities, 
male and female, is as follows : — That it is much warmer 
here than in London in the months of November and 
December — that there is on the whole much less frost and 
cold here than in London (some ^sturdy moralist,' who 
keeps a thermometer, told me it was at 4° one day last 
winter) — that there are never any fogs here (I don't know 
what it was that hindered me from seeing half way across 
the street this morning — prejudice, I suppose) — that spring 
is rather late, owing to the east winds, but that summer 
is delightful from a refreshing coolness unknown in 



88 LETTERS. 

England ; finally, that the climate is on the whole very dry, 
and that the Isle of Bute enjoys an air much milder and 
more favourable to invalids than Madeira. I thankfully 
acknowledge that they have thick walls and excellent fires 
here, so that one is warm enough within doors, and that a 
sedan-chair prevents all risk of cold in coming out at 
night, yet I find everybody but myself complaining of 
disorders of the lungs, or of being at least, ' very much 
coldecV 

Farewell, my dear father. Ever beUeve me. 

Your grateful and affectionate 

L. A. 

To Mrs. Barbauld. 

Edinburgh: Dee. 25, 1811. 

My dear Aunt — For fear of making the frank too 
heavy, I must not take a whole sheet ; but T may here 
inform you that your correspondent with a long title is 
the husband of the lady said to be the author of ' Self- 
Control ; ' but she d^es not yet avow the work. 

Lord Buchan has written some verses on your bonnet, 
worthy of a person of quality ; I will send them by the 
next opportunity ; in the meantime, I hope you can take 
patience. This Christmas-day is so unlike an English one 
I scarcely know it. Shops are open, carts rattling along, 
the usual street cries are heard — in short, it is just like 
any other day. The only relics of old observances I have 
witnessed are luaits playing in the night, and boys dressed 
up, and called guisards, who sing carols from door to door. 

I am all impatience for your new poem : what will you 
call it ? Is not Miss Baillie's ' Beacon ' a perfect gem, 
and do you not admire Orra ? .... In the midst of so 
much dissipation, expect from me neither ode nor vision ; 
when I am snugly seated at Newington again we shall see. 



TO MRS. BARBAULD. 89 

■and that will soon be, I hope. This racketing begins to 
tire me exceedingly, and I have now seen all the sights 
that I most care for. I wish I could bring you back 
Grrace in my hand ; she is a charming creature, full of 
ardour and enthusiasm, and more unspoiled, more uncon- 
scious of her rare endowments, than any young person of 
talent I ever saw. We read Latin together and discuss 
fifty topics in a day. I am teaching all the young people 
chess. Mrs. Hamilton and I have had some stout battles 
and come off even. Her health is very indifferent, and 
she never goes out, but she invites me to come to her 
whenever I have a spare hour, and I find her most agree- 
able by her own fireside. Dr. Parr says he intends to 
come and pass a year here, and spend a thousand pounds ; 
but some people doubt whether he is in earnest. I have not 
been so fortunate as to see Mr. Stewart, but I have several 
times met with his daughter, who is very pleasing and 
more cultivated, 1 think, than any lady I have seen here. 
The Edinburgh ladies are by no means literary in general. 
My paper is at an end, and I must hasten to subscribe 
myself. 

Your obliged and affectionate niece, 

L. AlKIN. 

To Mrs. Aikin. 

Edinburgh : Jan. 27, 1812. 
My dear Mother — I believe I have been rather longer 
than usual in thanking you for your kind long letter ; the 
reason was, that I hoped every day to be able to tell you 
that I had heard of a travelling companion, and fixed the 
day for my departure. I have not yet, however, heard of 
a party that entirely pleases me, but I am making diligent 
enquiries, and hope soon to succeed, for I can have no 
pleasure in dissipating here, while I think that you may be 



90 LETTERS. 

dull for want of me at home. Do not imagine, however, 
that I make any kind of sacrifice in returning. I have 
really had enough of that insipid thing called gaiety. I 
am tired of seeing faces that I never saw before, nor wish 
to see again. I am eager to get into the midst of the dear 
circle at home, and make you all alive with the history of 
what I have heard and seen. Since I wi'ote last, I have 
been at two assemblies, besides dinner-parties, suppers, 
and musical-parties. I did not think at all of dancing at 
the assemblies, because few ladies do who are turned five- 
and -twenty, their amusement is promenading up and down 
the card-room, holding by the arm of a chaperon or a 
gentleman, and making remarks on the company. Ac- 
cordingly, I had refused to dance with Mr. Simpson, but 
at last the music was so inspiring, and he so pressing, 
and I knew, too, that he danced so much better than he 
talked, that I consented; but, to my dismay, we had 
scarcely joined the set, when the country-dance was 
changed to reels ; however, I do not think they are danced 
better here than in England, so I took courage, and thought 
I might pass in the crowd. The second assembly was 
that annually given in honour of the Queen's birthday ; it 
was really a splendid sight. Lady Buchan presided, 
sitting on a chair of state, supported by Lady Caithness on 
one hand, and the Hon. Miss Elphinston on the other. 
We found seats near her, and saw everybody come up to 
pay their respects to her ladyship. The assembly-room 
is a very splendid one, and holds 1,200 people — it was 
almost full. As everybody is admitted who will pay five 
shillings, you may imagine that the company is not very 
select ; but though there are many vulgar people, there 
are none of a worse description, and the spectacle alto- 
gether is both gay and amusing. The crowd is too great 
to allow of many dances, but I went down one with a 
young Englishman, who danced with so much execution. 



TO MRS. AIKIN. 91 

forcing me to do the same, that I told him we should 
certainly be taken for Scotch folks. 

I conceive that your imagination may have figured me 
in various situations, but I think it will scarcely have repre- 
sented me seated at supper between two bishops, and chat- 
ting gaily with one of them ; yet this was my lot at a large 
party at Mr. Alison's. They were the Bishops of Meath and 
Edinburgh — the former is really a very entertaining 
pleasant man out of the pulpit, whence he has given us two 
polemical discom'ses of fifty-five minutes each. . . . What 
was better, we had delightful Play fair, and lively Brown, 
who is very acute and original, and improves much upon 

acquaintance. JNIrs. F had a warm debate with him 

on the merit of Miss Baillie's new volume, which she 
thought he undervalued. Do you think it equal to her 
former ones ? Talking of tragedies reminds me of one on 
an Icelandic story, by Sir Gr. Mackenzie, which came out 
on Wednesday last at this theatre. Scott and jNIackenzie 
wrote prologue and epilogue ; Dugald Stewart, Playfair, 
Alison and Jeffrey, all appeared in the same box, applaud- 
ing with might and main, and the pit was crammed with 
friends of the author — notwithstanding all which, the 
poor tragedy was laughed to death. We were none of us 
there, but, by all accounts, it must have been an infinitely 
amusing performance. Sir Greorge is so vain, that nobody 
pities him, but people are sorry for his wife, who is 
much liked- By way of contrast to these splendours, I 
one day took a walk down to Leith, a place as distinct 
from Edinburgh as if they were fifty miles asunder. The 
old part of the town is very shabby and very Scotchy, but 
there are many handsome new houses, and a superb coffee- 
room and assembly-room is building ; there are also new 
docks on a pretty large scale, on which they are now at 
work. The view up and down the Firth from the pier- 
head is truly magnificent ; it reminded me of Liverpool, 



92 LETTERS. 

and I snuffed the sea gale, mingled with the odour of pitch 
and tar, with great delight — to me these ^ savours mari- 
time' are * redolent of joy and youth.' I missed the 
bustle, the shouts, the quick motions, and the general air 
of animation which accompany an English sea-port ; the 
Scotch are certainly a slow and phlegmatic and silent 
people compared with the English. I am aware, however, 
that business is far from being brisk at Leith just now. 
One Grottenburgh vessel was unloading a cargo of flax, 
and that was all that we saw going forward ; the docks 
were full enough, but chiefly of Grreenlandmen and 

coasting vessels You can scarcely imagine my 

longing for familiar faces. I have met with much civiHty 
here, and some real kindness ; and this dear family I shall 
love as long as I live ; but as for the other figures that 
flit in such rapid succession before me, they take no hold 
upon my fancy or my heart — they are a gallery of 
portraits, nothing more, and I have had enough of them. 
jNIrs. F. tells me that they say I am very reserved — of 
course some will think it pride, and others timidity. I 
believe it is not so much of either, as of a feeling of being 
out of my element, and a dread of being thought obtru- 
sive. I find that I want ease for the great world. I 
believe, also, that I am too indifferent to the good opinion 
of strangers. I have been a close observer, however, of 
what was passing before me, and my knowledge of life 
and manners has been not a little increased. 

My dear mother, farewell. This family beg their kind 
regards. 

Believe me ever, at home or in absence. 

Your dutiful and affectionate 

L. AlKIN. 



TO DR. AIKIN. 93 



To Br. Aikin. 



Allerton : August 28, 1814. 

I liad begun to think that you had all forgotten and 
cast me off, my dear father, and for several days past I 
had been deliberating whether to write and scold, or to 
remain sulky and silent — sulkiness, or rather laziness, 
carried it. I will now condescend to tell you a few of the 
agreeable circumstances of the last week or two, and none 
but agreeable ones have I to mention. 

This day fortnight Mr. Smyth* arrived, and, with his gay 
good humour, rendered Allerton itself more gay and more 
animated. We had terrible battles of wits, however, all 
the time he was with us, for the professor was rash enough, 
the very first evening, to give utterance to two of his fusty 
college notions, which brought all us ladies out in array 
against him. The first was that no woman is fit to govern 
a kingdom ; the second, that the true art of tea-making 
is a mystery too deep for female comprehension. I charged 
him boldly on the first of these heretical propositions, all 
the females following me, and Mr. Eoscoe gallantly cheer- 
ing us on, and a glorious victory we gained. As for the 
second, the professor contrived to brew his own essence 
of hyson in a little separate tea-pot to the end of his visit, 
and the last thing he said to me was, that he hoped when- 
ever I happened to go to Cambridge, I would pay him a 
visit, when he would make me such a cup of tea as I never 
drank before. I believe I expressed rather a slighting 
opinion of ' Lara ' in my last ; but one day the professor 
and I turned out of the room Robert (who has written a 
wickedly witty parody on the said poem) and all the other 
scoffers, and I read it aloud to Mm my very best ; on which 
he fell into such raptures with several passages, that I was 

* The late Professor Smyth, of Cambridge. 



94 LETTEKS. 

also moved to change my opinion, and to discover that it 
is by no means unworthy the fame of the author. 

On Tuesday last, to everybody's sorrow, the professor 
took his departure, and, false man, without having written 
the sonnet on me that he promised. The same morning, 
Mr. and Mrs. Eoscoe and Jane went to look at the Moss, 
and James's new cottage, and William was obliged to go 
on business into Wales ; so only Mary- Anne, Eobert, 
Tom, Henry and I were left ; but I cannot say we found 
ourselves very disconsolate. In the mornings we went 
mushroom gathering, visited the fruit garden, played with 
tlie puppies, and took the elegant diversion here called 
shaddling, i.e. see-sawing on a plank. At night we told 
ghost stories, and the rest of our time was occupied in the 
grand enterprise of contriving a farce something on the 
plan of ' Les Facheux,' to be performed by us in honour 
of the return of the heads of the family. The time was 
short, for everybody was to be back on Friday night, but 
we worked hard, and last night, Saturday, we performed 
with vast applause ; the audience consisting of Mr. and 
]Mrs. R., Jane, William, James, and three cousins. As 
our company was not strong in females, I was obliged to 
imdertake two principal parts ; one a Quaker preacher, 
(copied from the old lady who held forth to me), the 
other, a certain Penelope Pry, who produced much laughter. 
Eobert had an ignoble fancy to appear in petticoats, and 
was very droll as a waiting-maid. I have not seen much 
of Liverpool or its inhabitants since I wrote, for we live 
here in a little world of om* o^vn. The only grand event 
that has occurred was the flowerincr of a nio-ht-blowinij: 

o o o 

Gerius (perhaps I spell it wrong), in the hothouse. 
Nearly the whole family sat up till twelve to see it, 
and, after watching its very perceptible motions for some 
time, we had the satisfaction to behold the golden calyx 
of many divisions expanded into a beautiful fringe, sur- 



TO DK. AIKIN. 95 

rounding a snowy flower of magnificent size and delicious 
fragrance. A short-lived beauty, however; though cut 
and carried into a dark room, it was withered by morn- 
ing ! . . . The same morning I had been doing duty work 

by calling on the 's. Exceedingly good hospitable 

folks they are — too hospitable, indeed. How to get off 
spending two or three days with them, and not affront 

Mrs. I know not. ' Our house is very dirty/ said 

the good lady (I was glad there was nobody with me to 
laugh), 'for we have been prevented painting this year, by 

Mr. 's having the gout ; but if you will take us as we 

are, we shall be very happy,' &c. I thanked, and pro- 
mised nothing. . . . This day were brought hither, from 
on board a wine-ship from Bourdeaux, a French sheep, 
and a beautiful little kid from the Pyrenees — the latter, 
which is black with two white stripes down its face, has 
excited great alarm among the sheep, who run from it as 
from a dog the moment it looks at them or begins to cut 
capers near them. Mr. Eoscoe, as a planter of trees and 
shrubs, is not much delighted with this addition to his live 
stock, and regards with more complacency a great fat- 
tailed Turkish sheep, whose cumbrous appendage scarcely 
allows it to run at all. I wish you could see his collection 
of American plants, which is considerable and curious, 
and, ! that you could behold the rock at the Botanic 
Garden, with all its treasures. Mr. T. brought Mr. Eoscoe 
the other day, from the curator of the Botanic Grarden at 
Montpelier, a catalogue of the plants contained in it. 
That institution, it appears, continues to flourish greatly, 
and the curator hopes to establish exchanges of plants and 
seeds between it and the Liverpool one. A goodly thing- 
is peace ! There is a charming little gentian in flower 
on the common here, of which we long to send you some 
roots. 

I think you will allow that I must now conclude. Adieu, 



96 LETTEES. 

my dear father and mother ! I hope you do not want me 
very much ; I am so well and happy here. Love to all. 
Your dutiful and affectionate 

L. A. 

To Mr, E, Aikin. 

Stoke Newington: Dec. 1814. 

Dear Edmund — I was tempted to write you two letters 
for one, meaning to send the last by Eobert Eoscoe, but 
he being gone sooner than I expected, I thought you 
would rather pay for it than lose it, and thus our letters 
crossed. I will not wait till I hear again to answer yours. 
... So much for bulletin ; now to other matters. We 
all liked your account of yourself very much ; in visiting- 
matters you seem to be doing everything that is right and 
ever3H:hing that is pleasant, and I have no doubt of your 
finding business go on briskly, especially since this happy 
news of peace with America, which cannot but give a fresh 
spirit of enterprise to the Liverpool merchants. ... I 
wonder with which of our friends you ate your Christmas 
dinner ; I guess you were not left to eat it alone at your 
lodgings. With us the day was very flat, I missed you 
sadly. . . . We had a little party in honour of Bessy, last 
Thursday, which went off very well ; for Arthur Taylor, in 
consequence of a hint from me, came all armed for panto- 
mime, bringing in his pocket a regal crowm, a cap and 
feather, a wand and a burnt cork, and we got up several 
scenes with vast applause. To-day everybody is dining 
at my aunt Barbauld's, except me, who am kept at home 
by a foolish panting — snow in the air, I fancy. A few 
days since I had the pleasure of a letter from Heniy,* 
dated Naples, November 24. He expresses the utmost 
satisfaction with his situation in every respect. After 
speaking with delight of various other objects of cm'iosity, 

* Sir Henrv Holland, Bart. M.D. 



TO ME. E. AIKIN. 97 

he mentions tlieir abode at Eome, ' where,' he says, ' amid 
the grandeur of ancient and modern times we found a 
source of additional interest in the society which was 
around us. To explain the variety of this interest, it may 
be enough to mention the names of Pope Pius VII., of the 
King and Queen of Spain, of the Queen of Etruria, Lucien 
Bonaparte and his family, Louis Bonaparte, Cardinal 
Fesch, Canova, and many others of minor repute. I talked 
with the Queen of Spain about her health, with Lucien 
Bonaparte about poetry and statues, with his daughter 
about England, with Cardinal Fesch about clerical celibacy, 
with Canova about the progress and future attainment of 
his art ; in short, each moment that was not occupied with 
the Coliseum, Pantheon, St. Peters, or Vatican, was taken 
up with the novelties of this strangely compounded 
society. Something I witnessed of what remains of the 
richness of catholic worship at Eome — it might inspire 
with a certain degree of veneration a more temperate 
man than Eustace. The Pope is venerable and pleasing, 
a,nd I preserve with all due regard a rosary with which he 
presented me. I confess myself disappointed with ancient 
Rome. I compared it with Athens ; there is no comparison : 
nature and art have severally done ten times as much 
for the latter spot, nor has the lapse of ages changed this 
proportion.' .... 

* Naples is perfection in its natural scenery ; its popu- 
lation is but a sorry compound of misery, bad institutions, 
and bad morals.' . . . Well ! now I think I have talked 
about most of the other things I had to say, and may with 
a tolerable grace begin to talk to you about my own 
affairs. I am glad you like the notion of my Queen 
Elizabeth project. I know not how I shall succeed in the 
execution, but the preparation is delightful to me. I 
mean to call it ' a view of the court of Queen Elizabeth,' 
or some such thing, and intend to collect all the notices 

H 



98 LETTERS. 

I can of the manners of the age, the state of literature, 
arts, &c., which I shall interweave, as well as I am able, 
with the biographies of the Queen and the other eminent 
characters of her time, binding all together with as slender 
a thread of political history as will serve to keep other 
matters in their places. Of books I shall certainly want 
a great number, but the Eed Cross Street library will 
furnish a good many — Mr. Eoscoe has kindly promised 
me several of his — from other friends I can borrow some, 
and when all these are exhausted, perhaps I may contract 
with a bookseller to supply me. I shall want your 
assistance in my account of matters of art. That reign 
forms, I believe, an era in architecture — it was the period : 
of the introduction of Greek and Eoman models and of ■ 
the utter depravation of the Gothic. Was it not then, too, 
that the residences of our nobility began to be transformed [ 
from castles into mansions ? 

The post is just going, and I have but just room for all 
our kind loves to you. I miss you perpetually. 

Your affectionate sister, 

L. A. 

To Mr. E. Aihln. 

Stoke Newington : May 9, 1815. ' 

|i 

Dear Edmund — I hope you will allow that everybody loves \ 
ten times better to receive what you call a gossiping letter [ 
than to write one — judge, then, by the size of paper I have j- 
taken to fill, how welcome are your epistles to me ! . . . . \ 

Well ! the beginning of last week I was, as I told you, r 

in town. An evening party on Monday at the X 's, . 

rather too grave and presbyterian ; but to make amends we - 
had an alderman, a person excellent in his way, thinner \ 
indeed than alderman beseems (but his wife atones for i 
that), and he had a red face, hair powdered snow-white, and e 



TO MR. E. AIKIN. 99 

one of those long foolish noses that look as if they thrust 
themselves into everything. Then, ye gods ! he is musical ; 

summoned Miss N to the instrument by touching a 

few call-notes, and would fain have sung with her, but 

wicked H had left her duets behind, and would not 

patronise his proposal of taking huo-thirds of a glee for 
three voices, so, to my unspeakable mortification, he had 
no opportunity of exhibiting. . . . Have I got thus far in 
my letter and said nothing of last Friday I It is a great 
proof of my methodical and chronological habits of writing 
that I did not jump to this period of ony history in the 
first paragraph. Know, that on Thursday Igist arrived an 
invitation from the Carrs to my father and my aunt to 
dine with them the next day, to meet Walter Scott — 
apologies at the same time that their table would not 
admit us all. Well ! nothing could persuade my father to 
go, so my aunt said she would take me instead, and I had 
not the grace to say no. A charming day we had. I did 
not indeed see much of the great lion, for we were fourteen 
at dinner, of whom about half were constantly talking, 
and neither at table nor after was I very near him ; but 
he was delighted to see my aunt, and paid her great atten- 
tion, which I was very glad of. He told her that the 
'Tramp, tramp,' 'Splash, splash,' of Taylor's 'Lenora' 
which she had carried into Scotland to Dugald Stewart 
many years ago, was what made him a poet. I heard 
him tell a story or two with a dry kind of humour, for 
which he is distinguished; and though he speaks very 
broad Scotch, is a heavy-looking man, and has little the 
air of a gentleman, I was much pleased with him — he is 
lively, spirited, and quite above all affectation. He had 
mth him his daughter, a girl of fifteen, the most naive 
child of nature I ever saw; her little Scotch phrases 
charmed us all, and her Scotch songs still more. Her 
father is a liappy minstrel to have such a lassie to sing 

H 2 



100 LETTERS. 

old ballads to him, whicti she often does by the hour to- 
gether, for he is not satisfied with a verse or two, but 
chooses to have Jit the first, second, and third. He made her 
sing us a ditty about a border reiver who was to be 
hanged for stealing the bishop's mare, and who dies with 
the injunction to his comrades. 

If e'er ye find tlie bishop's cloak. 

Ye'll mak it shorter by the hood. 

She also sung us a lullaby in Graelic — very striking 
novelties both, in a polished London party. Nobody could 
help calling this charming girl pretty, though all allowed 
her features were not good, and we thought her not unlike 
her father's own sweet Ellen. I had the good fortune to 
be placed at dinner between Mr. Whishaw and Sotheby, I 
better known by Wieland's Oberon than by his own Saul. ^ 
He is a lively, pleasant, elderly man; his manners of the 
old school of gallantry, which we women must ever like. 
A lady next him asked him if he did not think we could see 
by Mr. Scott's countenance, if Waverley were mentioned, 
whether he was the author ? ' I don't know,' said Mr. 

S , ' we will try.' So he called out from the bottom of 

the table to the top, ' Mr. Scott, I have heard there is a 
new novel coming out by the author of Waverley, have you 
heard of it ? ' 'I have,' said the minstrel, ' and I believe ^ 
it.' He answered very steadily, and everybody cried out ' 
directly, ' 0, 1 am glad of it ! ' ' Yes,' said Mr. \Miishaw, ^ I 
am a great admirer of those novels ; ' and we began to ^ 
discuss which was the best of the two, but Scott kept out i 
of this debate, and had not the assurance to say any hand- 
some things of the works, though lie is not the author — 
no ! for he denies them. 

Mr. Whishaw was lamenting that his friend Dumont is- 
returning to Greneva ; ' but he has the maladie du pays, 
like all Swiss. Talleyi'and says that to a Genevois,^ 
Geneva is la cinqmer)ie ])aviie du ivmide, and Dumont^ 



TO MR. E. AIKIN. 101 

' has a prospect of being Secretary of State, with a salary of 

! 50^. per annum. And they do not give cabinet dinners 

j there, but gouters,^ ' Of what ? ' ' Peach tart, I suppose.' 

I He asked me what was become of that Eoscoe who was 

I under Smyth at Cambridge some years ago ? ' A pretty 

j romantic young man, and the gods had made him poetical. 

There were verses to a lily by moonlight.' * 0,' said I, 

^ he is a steady banker now.' ' A steady banker ? ' * Yes ; 

there is something of the old character left, certainly, but 

I he is more a man of the world than he was then.' ' 0, of 

I course ; a banker is of the earth, earthly.'' I greatly doubt 

i whether the lion of the day uttered any roarings equal to 

these. But the latter part of the evening, our laughing 

philosopher fell in love with the little Scotch lassie, and 

only ^ roared like any sucking dove.' .... 

I positively must chatter no longer, I am so busy to day. 

Your affectionate, 

L. AlKIN. 

To Mr. E. Aikin. 

Stoke Newington : July 1815. 

I had been longing to hear from you, my dear Edmund, 
for a great while, but guessed how it was that you deferred 
writing. At last, by some mistake at home about the 
time of my return, your letter was sent to Brighton just 
after I left it ; no matter, it reached me safe at last, and 
I thank you very much for all its contents, particularly the 
letter to Warwick, of which the PS. is certainly very curious. 

"Well, but Brighton ! — you will expect to hear about it. 
I, for my part, care very little if I never hear of it more ; it 
is a most stupid disagreeable place, but has the advantage 
of making home quite a paradise in comparison. I saw 

no person whatever that I knew except Mrs. and her 

family ; Mr. was only once there from Saturday night 

to Monday morning, so that we were forced to put up with 



102 LETTERS. 

petticoat parties— things which in the long run rather 
weary me. Nothing, however, could be more friendly 

than Mrs. 's attentions to me, and I greatly enjoyed 

both my rides and my bathing, for which I am also some- 
what the better. The situation of Brighton is certainly 
far from beautiful, — a shingly shore without sands and 
without rock, except a bald low chalk cliff on one side — a 
sea without ships and land without trees ; but it must be 
confessed that it assembles all imaginable conveniences for 
summer visitants, lodgings of every kind and price, horses, 
chaises, gigs, sociables, donkeys, and donkey-carts to hire ; 
excellent shops, libraries, news rooms, &c. The bathing, 
however, is not in general very good ; they do not often 
push the machines far enough out to treat you with deep 
water, and you, or rather lue ladies, have only the alter- 
native of wading in over sharp shingles, and then sitting 
down to be knocked over and partially wetted by a wave, 
or to be carried, as I saw a gawky girl, between two bath- 
ing women, head downwards, heels kicking the air, red 
dirty legs belonging to ditto completely exposed, and the 
patient shrieking and crying like a pig taken to the 
slaughter — a mode which had rather too much the appear- 
ance of a penal ducking to suit my fancy. Well, but no 
matter for this now ; I am at home and found everybody 

well ; my aunt K mending. Grlad they were to see me 

again, for you maj^ believe that without Arthur and us 
two, the house would seem dull enough to my father and 

mother. I was also glad not to miss more of ]Mr. W 's 

company, for you know he is a. great favourite of mine. 
. . . To our great joy in came Mr. \Miishaw, and know- 
ing that Mr. W wished to see him, we sent for him. 

Some time after, my aunt Barbauld dropped in, and a 
most agreeable chat we have had. Mr. AVhishaw read to 
us an agreeable letter from Miss Edgeworth, about his 
life of Mungo Park, with a postscript by Mr. E , who is 



TO ME. E. AIKIN. 103 

very ill and seemingly beginning to doat, about the possi- 
bility of exploring Africa in balloons, which he says he 
knows the art of guiding — in perfectly calm air. . . . 

Mr. W says that the Duchess of Cumberland, when she 

comes over, will probably gain great influence with the 
Regent, being a very clever intriguing woman, and that 
the old queen will probably be soon out of her way, as she 
is not likely to live — a hint this for buying mourning ! 

Grood-bye, don't let it be nearly so long before you 
write again. My father and mother send their kind love. 
Your ever affectionate sister, 

L. A. 

To Mr, E. Aihin. 

Stoke Newington : Nov. 1815. 

My dear Edmund — I am glad of this opportunity to 
thank you for your letter by H. K., and to tell you how 
glad we all are that you have got this new job. It seems 
to have been by an odd sort of chance at last, though 
Mr. Roscoe always hoped to be able to procure it for you 
without difficulty. You must now have your hands quite 
full of business — all the better, though it removes and 
lessens the chance of your return hither. We have not 
yet seen Mr. Roscoe, who is extremely engaged, but he 
has promised us a visit at the end of the week. Judge 
how impatient I am to see him ; I shall be able to give 
him a tolerable account of Elizabeth, with whom I con- 
verse regularly several hours in the day. I am now pretty 
near the end of Edward's time, and I feel myself more 
and more interested in my subject. 

Benger has been spending part of two days with us. 
She is pretty well for one who will never let herself alone, 
and full of curious anecdote as usual. 

Charles Wesley, a while ago, took a queer very fat old 



104 LETTERS. 

Mrs. S to see the Queen go to the drawing-room. In 

the ante-chamber, in which they waited, were no seats, 
and the fat lady, becoming tired of standing, at last spread 
her handkerchief on the floor, and seated herself in a 
picturesque manner upon it. Charles, being a great 
blunderer, and somewhat wicked besides, gave the alarm 
several times that the Queen was coming, and as often 

poor Mrs. S made incredible efforts to get up and see 

her. At last, he had cried wolf so often that she did not 
heed him, and when the Queen came indeed, she was not 
able with the help of all his tugging, to rise from the 
ground till Her Majesty was past; and one end of her 
hoop was all that blessed the eyes of this loyal and pains- 
taking subject. To complete the misfortune, she was kept 
waiting for her carriage, owing to Charles's stupidity, till 
her dinner was spoiled, and the friends she had invited to 
eat it were quite out of patience ; and to mend all, this 
rare composition of wit and goose tells the whole story as 
a good joke, mimicking her to admiration ! 

Pray read when you can meet with it, a tragedy called 
^ Fazio,' by a very clever young Mr. Milman, whom I once 
saw at AUerton. The language is the best imitation of 
our old dramatists that I have seen ; it is brilliant with 
poetry, and contains fine scenes and situations, though the 
plot is shocking and improbable. ... If I mistake not, 

this is a rising star, destined to blaze far and wide 

Talking of choice people, to be sure, I ought to tell you 
that we have had a call from Mr. Eogers, who was very 
agreeable and entertaining with his accounts of Italy. 
WTiat a beau king Murat is ! The morning Mr. Eogers 
was presented to him, he was standing in the middle of a 
large room, displaying his fine figure in a Spanish cloak, 
hat and feather, yellow boots, pink pantaloons, and a 
gTeen waistcoat ! In the evening he appears in a simpler 
costume, but still wearing roses on his shoes, a white 



TO MR. E. AIKIN. 105 

plume in his hat, and his hair prodigiously curled and 
frizzed, with a long love-lock hanging down on each side. 
He does not dress above five times a day. Then, no king- 
in Europe, probably, cuts such high capers in the dance — 
but for other qualifications for reigning, I hear nothing of 
them. Naples is beautiful, says Mr. Eogers, and the 
court very gay and pretty ; but after all, Florence is the 
place one longs to live in. No city of its size has half so 
many fine domes and towers; then the beautiful Arno 
meets your eye at every turn, and beyond it the finest 
woods and distant mountains. His descriptions quite set 
me longing ; such gales of myrtle, such groves of orange 
trees, stuck as full of fruit, he says, as the trees you see 
sometimes painted by a child ! 

To-day being Sunday, William Taylor dines with my 
aunt, and I suppose will call here. As my letter cannot 
go till to-morrow, I will leave it open, in hopes of some 
sayings of his. He was very agreeable the short time he 
stayed ; with his usual calculating spirit, he said that if it 
was necessary to have a war with France, better now than 
three years hence, when two or three more conscriptions 
would have grown up. It was to be wished that such a 
balance could be re-established as would allow the ten- 
years peaces in Europe which there had been formerly — 
we could not well bear longer ones, for man was essen- 
tially a fighting animal, and a twenty years' peace would 
turn any republic into a monarchy. He is visiting 
Dr. Southey, who is thriving greatly, and about to marry 
again, and, to our great regret, he cannot promise us a 
day. We have likewise had a call from Mr. J. Taylor. 
Grreat joy to see him again in London, looking tolerably, 
and able to walk from Islington hither. We are all quite 
well here, and all send love to you. 

Your affectionate sister, 

L. A. 



106 LETTERS. 



To Mr. E. Aikin. 

Stoke Newington : June 1817. 

Dear Edmund — Here come your cravats, which have 
been delayed a little, but I hope not inconveniently to 
you, for some of the other contents of the parcel. 

Arthur's business is going on most prosperously. . . . 

Only two candidates are left, one a Mr. H , who is 

brother to a person pretty high in the Board of Works, and 
supported, therefore, by some government interest ; but in 
this Society* it seems government can do little, and on 
the whole the man is one whom Arthur can have no 
cause to fear. 

The absence of members from London makes the canvass 
tedious, but Arthur meets, from most whom he sees, with 
a reception flattering both to himself and all of us. One 
said, ' Are you the son, sir, of the celebrated Dr. A. ? — 
then you shall have my vote, for I am sure you must be 
qualified for the station.' Several others asked the same 
question; the Scotchmen invariably knew the literary 
character of the family, and were proud to support him. 
One man, a sword cutler, to whom he had no introduction, 
gave his vote to him as Mrs. Barbauld's nephew, and 
begged to introduce him to his family. ' Is he one of the 
authors of the " Chemical Dictionary " ? ' cried a working 
chemist, * then I am sure he shall have my vote, and all 
my interest, for I have learnt more from it than any book 
I ever read ! ' Dr. Parsons, the civilian, was so much 
struck and pleased with him in a conversation of a few 
minutes, that he not only gave the promise of his own 
vote, but ran and fetched him votes in all Doctors' 
Commons and the Heralds' Office. Three votes have 
been given him by old comrades of the third regiment of 

* The Society of Arts. 



TO MB. E. AIKIN. 107 

volunteers. One man whom Dr. Laird was canvassing for 
him said, ' To tell you the truth, sir, I mean to go with 
the gentleman who will get it; I don't choose my vote 
should be thrown away.' He has since voluntarily 
promised to Arthur. Another bird of good omen is 
Wilks, printer to the society, whose interest it is to make 
friends with the future secretary. 

I have seen the Exhibition, but as everybody said, there 
was nothing worth looking at but the sculpture. Canova's 
Hebe and Terpsichore are a splendid pair of statues. I 
admired most the Muse, for her goddess-like air and noble- 
ness of expression; but I believe the critics in form 
give the palm to the Hebe. A monument for two children 
by Chantrey, which represents them sleeping in each 
other's arms, is nature itself ; and so touchingly beautiful, 
that it won all hearts even from the beau ideal of Canova. 

I was not satisfied with Shoe's portrait of Mr. Eoscoe ; 
the expression is vulgar — the likeness, however, is striking. 
There was a large picture by Fuseli, of Perseus with the 
ororgon's head, which hovered, as usual, between the 
terrible and the grotesque, but on the whole was very 
striking. Your friend Dawe had a very well-painted 
portrait of Princess Charlotte, which I suppose will do 
him good. But why do I talk so much of what I do not 
understand ? 

I have been reading a book on — what do you think ? I 
would give you twenty guesses — a book by a lady, of 
which I said at first, with all the superciliousness of pro- 
found ignorance, ' I shall not read it, I am sure.' But, 
happening to peep between two of its unopened leaves, I 
cast my eyes on so wise and well-written an expose of 
the inconveniences of this same ignorance in which I 
gloried, that I found myself shamed into opening the 
leaves, studying it from end to end with great attention, 
and confessing that I found it well worth the pains — in 



108 LETTERS. 

short, I have been perusing Mrs. Marcet's ' Conversations 
on Political Economy.' 

I never was so busy in my life as at this present 
^vriting ; for I perceive there is not an hour to be lost if 
I would have my book out in good time. I am, however, 
quite well, and pleased with my task, so let nobody pity me 
for meaning to stay at home and work hard all summer. 

I have no time for more at present. 

Believe me ever yours, 

L. Aiiax. 

To Mr. E. Aihin, 

Stoke Newington : 1817. 

Dear Edmund — My conscience tells me that I ought 
before now to have told you how much we were all grati- 
fied to hear that you had borne your journey so well, and 
were resuming your occupations with spirit. I am par- 
ticularly glad of the opportunity of writing offered me by 
William Koscoe, having several things to say to you. . . . 
Mr. Whishaw and Mr. Smyth made us a call according 
to promise, but only of half-an-hour, alas ! They were 
both glad and surprised at Arthur's success, not thinking, 
they said, that anybody on that side could get anything. 
Mr. Smyth wants to say something in his lectures about 
' us ladies ' I find ; and I believe I shall have given him 
a clue to most of what he wants. 

Miss Eogers and her two brothers dined one day with 
my Aunt Barbauld. My father dined there, and my 
mother and I went to tea, and nothing could be more 
agreeable. Mr. Eogers laid himself out to he entertaining^ 
and gave us some very interesting anecdotes of Lord 
Erskine's rise in his profession, given him by himself. 
The first cause that he had was Captain Bayley's, in the 
matter of Grreenwich hospital; it was decided by the 



TO ME. E. AIKIN. 109 

twelve judges; his astonishing eloquence and energy, 
joined to the right on his side, gained it; and he went 
home that night with sixty-seven retaining fees in his 
pocket. Yes, talent may be buried in obscurity for a 
while, but it breaks out at last ; think of that, and keep 
a good heart. 

I must give you an anecdote of lionising which I have 
just heard. Mrs. Opie, who is still in London, was hold- 
ing one of her usual Sunday morning levees, when up 
comes her footman, much ruffled, to tell her that a man 
in a smock frock was below, who wanted to speak to her 
— would take no denial— could not be got away. Down 
she goes to investigate the matter. The rustic advances, 
nothing abashed : ' I am James Hogg, the Ettrick shep- 
herd.' The poet is had up to the drawing-room, smock 
frock and all, and introduced to everybody. Presently he 
pulls out a paper — some verses which he had written that 
morning, and would read, if agreeable. With a horrible 
Scotch accent, and charity boy twang, he got througli 
some staves, nobody understanding a line. ' Mr. Hogg,' 
says Mrs. Opie, ' I think, if you will excuse me, I could do 
more justice to your verses than yourself; ' so takes them 
from him, and with her charming delivery, causes them to 
be voted very pretty. On inquiring, it is found that the 
shepherd is on a visit to Lady Cork, the great patroness 
of lions (see the ' Twopenny Post Bag ') ; is exhibited ; and 
has doubtless, since his arrival, merited this illustrious 
protection, by exchanging, for an habiliment so sweetly 
rustic, the new green coat, pink waistcoat, and fustian 
small clothes, in which such a worthy would naturally 
make a debut in the great city ! As for ' Lalla Eookh,' it 
is pretty and very pretty ; tender, melodious, and adorned ; 
but, my aunt Barbauld says, 'tis my flower dish, sweet and 
gay, and tastefully arranged, but the flowers do not grow 
there : they are picked up with pains here and there. 



110 LETTEKS. 

He has thrown an infinite quantity of oriental aUusion 
into his verse, but the reader sympathises in some degree 
in the labour of the writer — there is no general interest, 
no entrainement — abundance of sentimental beauty, how- 
ever as well as descriptive, some very manly lines on 
liberty, &.C., in the prose some charming banter of reviewers 
— on the whole, I hope you will read it. My father has 
finished the wiiting of his ' Annual Eegister,' and is begin- 
ning his enlargement of ' England Delineated.' I cannot 
persuade him that he works too hard ; though we are all 
sure that it is true. 

Grood-bye, good-bye ; I miss you very much, and so do 
we all. Never forget that there are those who love and 
are anxious for you. 

Your dearly affectionate, 

L. A. 

To Mr. E. Aikin, 

Stoke XewiDgton: June 1817. 

Dear Edmund — I, that have a much tenderer conscience 
as a correspondent than some folks, have been reproaching 
myself ever since Tuesday se'nnight with not writing to 
you. For to be sure, thinks I to myself, he would be glad 
to hear of the annual prize distribution of the Society of 
Arts, and of Mr. Secretary's gi-and speech on the occasion, 
and all the grand things said to him thereon. But then se- 
veral things made me busy, and I waited for a parcel which 
is to go, but now I am resolved to wait no longer 

Now for the meeting. It was held in that grand Free- 
masons' Hall which holds 1700, and was as full as it would 
hold, and fuller, for all the passages were crowded, and 
some hundreds could not even get into them. His E. H. 
the President made a little exordium ; then came Mr. Se- 
cretary's' speech or report. I was almost close to him, and 



TO MPw E. AIKIN. Ill 

should have been fluttered, but that T saw he was not so 
in the least, and knew that he must do himself honour. 
He raised that fine voice of his, from the first syllable, to 
such a pitch that it was distinctly heard to the farthest 
corner of the hall ; and this without injuring at all its 
natural music or just modulation. After his general 
remarks, he gave a particular report of what had been 
done by the first committee ; then came the candidates in 
that branch, to whom the Duke delivered their premiums 
with a little amiable compliment to each. Next came the 
report of the second committee, and so on. Nothing could 
be better than this arrangement, which was his own, and 
afforded respite to him, and variety to the hearers ; and 
nothing surely more interesting than to see so many happy- 
looking beings coming to receive the public recompense 
of their talents. Some were artists, some mechanics, some 
girls, some boys ; many of them had countenances of great 
talent. The whole lasted near three hours. The conclu- 
sion of Arthur's speech was followed by a thunder of 
applause, ^nd when all was done, I had the proud pleasure 
of walking down the hall leaning on his arm, and listening 
with greedy ears to the compliments and congratulations 
of the most distinguished members. 

The next night was a general meeting of tlie society, 
H.K.H. the president in the chair; when so many fine 
things were said, that the poor secretary was obliged to 
make his escape ; but was soon called in again, to hear 
the unanimous resolution which had passed for the printing 
of the speech; an honour never paid by this society to 
speech before, aud to be requested by the president to 
comply with the general wish, by permitting it to be 
done. He meant to have refused, but the Duke said 
'pray' so prettily, that it was out of the question; par- 
ticularly as he ended with — ' In short, sir, I need only 
say that it was the work of an Aikin.' So printed it is 



112 LETTERS. 

to be, and you will receive a copy in a few days ; and I 
might have saved you postage by delaying my letter till 
then, but whether you would have thought it well saved I 
do not know. I wish you had seen with what a beautiful 
serenity and simplicity he went through the whole — 
nothing about him like any of the littlenesses of an ordinary 
mortal. You might have heard a pin fall during the 
speech, so much was everybody impressed with his manner, 
so much for the apotheosis of Arthur. I have only to 
add, that he is going to give a large party next week, at 
which I am to preside. 

I shall be very glad of your note on mixed Grothic; 
more especially if it should be the means of stimulating you 
to write some separate work on the progress of domestic 
and public architecture in England — a subject on which 
I cannot but think that a very elegant and popular book 
might be written, and written by you. All that I wish 
for you, as for Arthur, is the opportunity of showing what 
is in you. In part your buildings speak for you, but the 
opportunity of executing your designs does not always 
occur, and I think a work on a professional subject would 
be in every way a useful exertion of your talents. When 
habit shall in some degree have familiarised you to the 
effort of composition, I am convinced that 3^ou will find, 
as I do, pleasure and solace in the occupation. I am 
writing very hard — hope to have done in three or lour 
months — printing will take as much longer, and I posi- 
tively will not go to press till the last page is written — so 
you perceive that I shall be out, barring accidents, in 
spring. I shall stay at home all the summer, in spite of 
kind invitations, both from Harlington, and from tlie 
Haygarths, who have also most cordially invited my father 
and mother. Till my work is done I could not enjoy a 
holida}^. . . . My father and mother join in kind love to you. 

Ever your affectionate, 

L. AlKIN. 



TO MR. E. AIKIN. 113 



To Mr. E^ Aikin, 



Stoke Newington : March 1818. 
Dear Edmund — At length I can say here is my book 
— our book rather, since the appendix is yours. * Odds 
tremors ! ' as Bob Acres would say, it is a nervous thing to 
face the critics of these days ! I am not yet quite merce- 
nary enough altogether to prefer solid pudding to empty 
praise, but solid pudding may reasonably enough surely 
be preferred to dry beating ; therefore I may be excused 
for saying that, at present, the money is my most agreeable 

matter of anticipation. Yet the K 's, who have had 

the work in sheets, assure me that they find it very enter- 
taining, and if other people should be of the same mind, 
who knows but I may meet with some favour in the 
world ? My publishers are very civil, assure me they 
have no doubt whatever of my success, and already try to 
embark me in some new scheme ; but they have as yet hit 
on nothing which entirely pleases me. They want me to 
write for young people, a thing to which I have no great 
stomach. Of the two, I believe I had rather amuse men 
and women than instruct children. 

The little pamphlet which I enclose with this, is a poem, 
attributed, as I believe truly, to Lord Byron ; though not 
at all in his old style, it is, I think, a good deal in his old 
spirit. It exhibits the same bad and miserable mind 
through an effort at pleasantry. The piece, however, 
seemed to me both original and amusing, and having 
bought it, I thought I might as well make you a present 
of it. The 'antique gentleman of rhyme' is Sotheby, 
against whom his lordship is known to have a particular 
spleen. . . . My father's ' Description of England ' (being 
the ' Delineation ' enlarged) is in the press, and he gets lOOl. 
for it, which we think pretty good. The book trade is at 

I 



114 LETTERS. 

present in great activity. Within the last year a striking 
change has taken place; then, publishers would hardly 
treat for anything which was brought them ; now they run 
about urging all their authors to be diligent. Golden 
days for us. 

I like as little as you the cold and timid style of Dr. 

B 's biogi'aphical articles. I guess you would discern 

' Du Hamel ' to be the work of a far other pen. I have 
sometimes grieved that Arthur's style should be wasted, as 
I thought, on scientific subjects, but I now perceive how 
much it tells even upon them. His glowing mind warms 
and enlightens all that it touches. It is curious to observe 
the native eloquence of Humboldt struggling with the 
encumbrance of all the sciences. Did ever mortal man 
study so many ologies, or travel with so many ometers ! 
Yet there are magnificent passages of description in this 
last volume of his personal narrative. We have just been 
reading Bradbury with great entertainment; those tens 
of thousands of buffaloes are quite sublime, and the whole 
account of his navigation on that great river is new and 
very striking in its details. After my long abode among 
the statesmen and courtiers of Elizabeth, I feel indescrib- 
able refreshment in breathing the pure air of untamed 
nature in her Atlantic solitudes, and I am eager to culti- 
vate an acquaintance with plain honest brute creatures. 

Does the ' Asiatic Journal ' ever fall in your way ? It 
ought by all means to be taken in at the Athenseura,* now 
that the trade to India is so great an object to the town 
of Liverpool. It abounds with entertaining and interest- 
ing orientalisms of every kind ; my father gleans from it 
rich pickings for the 'Annual Eegister,' and I eagerly 
explore it for hints of a hundred curious kinds of know- 
ledge entirely new to me. The completion of my long 
task seems to have 

* The Athenaeum at Lirerpool. 



TO MK. E. AIKIN. 115 

Let fly 
A ciptive bird into the boundless sky. 

I flutter my free wings with delight, alight now upon this 
tree, now upon that ; drink of every clear spring ; taste 
of every tempting fruit, and enjoy a renovated youth and 
spring-time of existence. Charming! could it but last. 
. . . Mind you write to me soon again, and do not fail to 
tell me anything pretty that you may chance to hear of a 
certain book; I assure you I am not a jot wiser than 
other authors, or less fond of sugar-plums. The opinion, 
however, about which I am most anxious, is that of Mr. 
Koscoe, which I shall doubtless hear from himself. I can 
scarcely forgive myself for not dedicating to him, but 
even Mr. WTiishaw said it must not be. Such are these 
times ! My father and mother are both uncommonly well 
and send their love. Adieu. 

Your ever affectionate 

L. A. 

To Br. and Mrs, Aikin. 

Lambridge: July 5, 1818. 

My dear Father and Mother — Possibly you may begin 
to wish for some further tidings of your runaway. All 
that I have to give are good and pleasant, and since the 
receipt of my mother's most welcome letter, being freed 
from the anxiety which had before pressed upon me, I 
have enjoyed myself doubly. By the unwearied kindness 
of my friends and the convenience of a carriage at com- 
mand, I have seen to great advantage the environs of this 
beautiful city,* in which every day has disclosed to me 
new charms. Yesterday we took a drive to Kelston, and 
though I was somewhat mortified to find that not a vestige 
remained of the mansion in which Queen Elizabeth was 

* Bath. 
I 2 



116 LETTEES. 

entertained by Sir John Harrington, her ^ saucy godson/ 
the rural beauties of the situation, and a certain air of 
antiquity thrown over the whole peaceful village, highly 
gratified me. One very agreeable evening we passed at 
Mr. Conybeare's, with whom I soon got into high chat on 
architecture, antiquities, history, &c., whence he digressed 
to mineralogy and to Arthur. I was delighted with his 
conversation ; to a large share of knowledge on a great 
variety of subjects, and much taste, he adds a vein of 
original humour, which, united to the utmost good nature, 
renders him completely agreeable. He, and his beautiful 
and very pleasing wife, have since returned the visit and 
confirmed my favourable opinion of them both. . . . You 
may believe that I have not neglected to renew my ac- 
quaintance with my old friend, Mrs. B, After mutual calls, 
she invited me to a thing mightily in my line — a concert. 
I was gratified, however, with some of the music, and glad 
to find that her eldest girl is regarded as a kind of musical 
prodigy, to the delight of father and mother. In a corner 
of the room sat a little thin old lady, mufiled up in a black 
dress, without a bit of white to be seen, with a high smart 
headdress, well rouged cheeks, long nose, and very lively 
black eyes, whose picturesque appearance almost instantly 
attracted my notice. ' Let me introduce you,' cried Mrs. B. 
' to Mrs. Piozzi.' ' By all means,' exclaimed I, for a 
hundred associations made me- long to talk with the rival 
of ' Bozzy ; ' and I went and sat by her. Her vivacity has not 
forsaken her, and I have been at once gratified and tan- 
talised on our return from Bath this morning, to find her j 
card left for me. I hope to find her at home when I return 
the visit. She is now seventy-nine, and seems as if she 
might enjoy life a long time yet. . . I do not know how I 
can be home before Friday. My friends are most cordially 
kind, and take every possible means of showing that my 
company is very welcome to them. Of conversation we 



TO DR. AND MRS. AIKIN. 117 

have never had any want. The doctor* will talk politics 
■with me, but we don't quarrel, partly because I let him 
have it pretty much his own way ; but he perfectly under- 
stands my lamentations that the metropolis should have 
disgraced itself by the choice of so many opposition mem- 
bers. There is come to Bath a wild Irish apostle, himself 
a convert from popery, who has been the means of 40,000 
of his countrymen learning to read, and of a great number 
forsaking their old superstition. He has called a meeting 
to tell his story and beg contributions, and Dr. Percival 
tells Miss H. and me that we must go and hear him, which 
I long to do, for the man, Thaddy ConoUy by name, is so 
grotesque a creature, that even Dr. P. cannot mention 
him without laughing. I suppose he is a very fit instru- 
ment for his work, however, and I wish him all success. 
I saw yesterday the S.'s, a good specimen of Bath, for the 
father is literary and scientific, the mother furiously gay, 
and the daughter violently methodistical. With kind love 
to all, believe me, my dearest parents. 

Ever your dutiful and affectionate 

L.A. 

To Mr. E. Aikin, 

Adelphi:May 1, 1819. 

Dear Edmund — Thank you for your second letter, which 
has done something towards removing our anxiety respect- 
ing you, though we shall still want to hear that your 
strength is returned. I wish I had you to nurse — but what 
signifies wishing ? . . . . 

The dinner at the Hollands' f was no bad thing in its way 
neither ; one is sure to meet men there from all countries 
which they trade to, nearly all the civilised world. We had 

* Dr. Haygarth. f Mr. Swinton Holland, of the house of Barings. 



118 LETTERS. 

the priest and the surgeon who are going out to Buona- 
parte; the former a reverent and innocent-looking old 
abbe, who has not in the least the appearance of a man to 
plot the escape of the prisoner ; I understood his Italian 
tolerably well, his French less, his English least of all. 
The surgeon is a little sharp-looking Corsican, who has 
quitted a good situation at Florence for this banishment 
— surely from some hope of seeing his master one day 
reinstated. He spoke Italian with a harsh accent, very 
rapidly, and in a tone which rendered it almost utterly 
unintelligible to me. I was actually surprised into 
speaking a whole sentence of Italian to the abbe, greatly 
to my own astonishment, and little, I fear, to his edifica- 
tion. When the party was nearly all assembled, in strode 
the longest, leanest, brownest, most ungainly mortal I ever 
set eyes on. He had scarcely knocked his head against 
the lamp in the middle of the room, when I had decided 
upon him ; ' an American,' whispered I to Mrs. H. It 
was even so, a senator from Carolina ; I had him for my 
neighbour at dinner ; the ' grim feature ' was disposed to 
talk, and certainly wanted neither sense nor knowledge. 
There were some stories told of borough jobbing which 
made this republican bless himself, but he longed to 
witness the humours of an English election, and anxiously 
inquired if there was any chance of a vacancy in any 
popular place. I had on my other side at dinner a much 
more prepossessing person, Mr. Haldimand, Mrs. Marcet's 
brother, who is not a little proud apparently of such a 
sister. I suppose he is one of the ablest and most en- 
lightened mercantile men in London, and learnedly talked 
he of usury laws and so forth ; observing that ladies now 
studied political economy, on the whole I found him 
polished, clever, and entertaining. We had another great 
merchant with a Dutch name, which I dare not spell, who 
was a kind of dandy and picture-fancier ; we had also Dr. 



TO MR. E. AIKIN. 119 

Holland, but he was so seized upon by the Italians that 
one had nothing of him. 

This morning my mother and I go with Arthur to this 
Arctic panorama, from drawings by Lieutenant Beechy, 
which all the world sees and admires as something quite 
new and striking. 

It is high time for me to stop scribbling and get ready 
to go out. 

Ever your affectionate 

L. AlKIN. 

To her Niece, 

Hampstead : June 15. 

Dear Susan — I, like you, must make out a letter without 
great events ; but what, though ! I hope we have either 
of us brains enough to spin one poor sheet out of ! Ob- 
serve, however, that I have much the least assistance from 
circumstances of the two ; I have no change of scene, no 
new acquaintances, and though I have lounging plenty, it 
is not, as I wish it were, ' by the resounding main,' but 
only among the herbs and flowers of my own garden. I 
am concerned to inform the younger members of the 
family, that my great brag of fruit is reduced to two 
peaches, one cherry, and three plums, with a small sprink- 
ling of apples, and a few gooseberries and currants. The 
grapes, indeed, promise great things as to quantity, but 
let me see them ripen. What is worst of all, my two 
greengage trees, as they ought to have been, turn out 
paltry Qgg plums, and I am enraged. But my flower-beds 
begin to look quite Newingtonian. 

Last Thursday, went to Mrs. Mallet's ; nobody there but 

Mr. and Mrs. B and Mrs. Mulso, and we sat in a 

long straight line down one side of the drawing-room with 
our hands before us. I was next to the enchanting Mr. 



120 LETTERS. 

B , who discoursed on commercial distress. He was 

mightily puzzled with the coffee cups being handed about 
empty ; and never found out the coffee-pot or the waiter, 
and would have gone without till now, had I not humanely 
assumed the office of Hebe. This being the only incident 
of the evening, I judged it highly worth recording. If 
they catch me there again — that's all ! 

I am cumbered with many things at present ; between 
idle visits and idle books I have no leisure for my business. 
We have had the first volume of the ' Betrothed Lovers,' — 
that Italian novel you know. It is very interesting, both 
as a story and a picture of manners ; and the sentiments 
are very sound and rational. It has had prodigious 
success in Italy, which is good as a sign of the liberality 
of sentiment now diffused there, and good also because 
it is highly important that they should have books which 
may serve to rouse the Italian women from their darling 
* far niente.' Mrs. Marcet says there is no medium with 
them at present, between being professors of anatomy and 
not knowing how to read. Being ignorant, they are idle ; 
being idle, they fall into intrigue, profligacy, and gaming. 
A thousand pities, for with tolerable instruction the 
Italian genius shows itself the brightest in Europe. At 
the school of mutual instruction at Florence, Mrs. Marcet 
was requested to examine the boys ; and their quickness, 
and accuracy, and variety of useful knowledge, perfectly 
astonished her. By the way, I exceedingly longed for you 
when we had a delightful morning visit from Mrs. and 
Miss Marcet; I know no woman comparable to Mrs. 
Marcet in the charm of her society, and I assure you that 
her daughter is exceedingly agreeable also — affected ! no 
such thing indeed. She joined in conversation with an 
ease, a sweetness, a modest grace which delighted me. 
Forgetfulness of self is the greatest charm in manner ; but 
to young people this charm scarcely ever belongs. Their 



TO HER NIECE. 121 

inexperience makes every appearance in society a kind of 
experiment to them, and they usually watch its success 
with too visible an anxiety. To this anxiety faults appa- 
rently the most opposite may equally be traced ; bashful- 
ness, invincible taciturnity, forward chatter, and the whole 
tribe of aflfectations have all their root in egotism. Their 
common cure is to be sought in the cultivation of that 
amiable spirit of social sympathy, which lends itself with 
ease to the tastes and pursuits of others, which, forgetful 
of self, seeks to give pleasiure to all around, and secures 
approbation by evincing good will. From early youth 
this was the distinguishing charm of your most lovely 
mother, whom everyone loved at sight and half adored on 
thorough knowledge. By this charm she silenced detrac- 
tion and made envy relent; her learning, and even her 
beauty, were forgiven by rivals, and old and young, men 
and women, pressed around to claim her as a friend. 

Dear love to Kate, and tell her if she will write to me, 
I will write to her. Your father says he will write soon. 
Ever, dear girl, your affectionate aunt, 

L. AlKIN. 

To her Niece. 

Hampstead: Nov. 17. 
Dear Sue — I said I would not write to you till I had 
dined with the king and queen at Guildhall, which might 
excuse me from correspondence with you for a longer time 
than your visit even is likely to endure ; but at the heavy- 
risk of being accounted a person lost to all sense of the 
obligation of vows, here I am putting pen to paper for a 
little chat with you. To be sure it is a great pity that I 
have been robbed of an occasion on which it would have 
been so ' easy to be eloquent,' as that grand display of 
festivity and loyalty; a still greater pity it is, that the 



122 LETTEES. 

splendid sleeves of net and satin which Anna had con- 
structed for me are still unworn, and likely to be, and that 
my old Mansion House plume has been cleaned to no 
purpose : but what is the use of fretting ? The day before, 
I think I had a greater trial of patience — I had Mrs. and 
Miss Hoare, Mr. Crabbe, Mrs. Mallet and your father to 
tea, and also Mr. Whishaw, who happened to have volun- 
teered for the same evening, and somehow or other I had 
got so deaf that I could not speak to anybody ; for whether 
you may happen to have thought of it or no, certain it is 
that there is no talking when one is deaf, which I take to 
be the great objection to it. There I sat, a stupid dummy, 
wishing myself in bed all the time. This deafness lasted 
the whole week. On the Saturday I was engaged to dine at 
Mr. Justice Parke's * — could not put it off — set out feeling 
as if I was going to execution, but stopping at James 
Street by the way, I got syringed, and went off in high 
glee, hearing as well as ever. . . . 

The grand news of Hampstead is, that INIr. Webster is 
giving us a course of geological lectures ; to-day we have 
the second. Said your uncle to me in the summer, ' Don't 
you thick you could get Webster a class here ? ' I said, 
'I will try;' and having so said, I vas obliged, contrary 
to my habits, if not to my nature, to become an active, 
canvassing body in the parish — wrote letters, called on 
people, got the Lord Chief Justice for patron — and behold 
a class of about forty, with which I apprehend he is well 
content, and with his first lecture everybody has seemed 
pleased ; and there was all the science and intellect of the 
place (at least I am afraid so). In the introductory lec- 
ture we have had both the Huttonian and Wernerian 
theories, and fire and water have been fighting in my 
brain ever since. To-day we are to proceed from theories 
to facts, things which please me better. Wlien I read 
* Lord "Wensleydale. 



' TO HER NIECE. 123 

theories, by which I mean such hypotheses as, even if 
true, could never be adequately proved, I think I hear 
people telling their dreams. They have, however, their 
use ; ingenious men, by the zeal for supporting or opposing 
them, are urged to search into facts, and thus much real 
knowledge is brought to light. 

I have been reading a very deep and very able book, 
with which I should certainly have endeavoured to task 
your intellect had you been with me. This is a history of 
ethical philosophy in England, written by Sir. J. Mackin- 
tosh for a new edition of the ' Encyclopaedia Britannica.' 
He begins with a slight view of the system of Plato and 
other ancients, and of the schoolmen, of whom I believe 
he is the only living person who knows anything. He 
shows a wonderful comprehension of his subject in all its 
branches and bearings. The style somewhat disappointed 
me; his friends say it was written hastily, but there are 
luminous and original remarks which give great value and 
interest to the work. I^found it never dry, though some- 
times difificult ; and I should like few things better than 
some time to go over it again with you It is peculiarly 
desirable for women to exercise themselves in works of 
reasoning ; without this discipline, prejudice, and senti- 
ment, and fancy, take such possession of them, that logic 
is turned quite out of doors, and then the men go and say 
the sex have no heads, which makes one mad. Talking 
of she-heads. Miss Edgeworth has come to town, bringing 
us a new novel, which I hope to see excellent, were it only 
to prove she can stand alone. Mrs. Joanna BailHe once got 
out of her that ' Rackrent ' and ' Ennui ' were all her own. 
' Very well, Maria,' said she, ' that is enough, I don't want 
to hear any more.' To be sure it is the lion's share. 
Yesterday I dined with the S. Hoares, and enjoyed it 
much ; there was no great party, but all was very kind 
and friendly, and we talked of the days of our youth. Mr. 



124 LETTERS. 

Crabbe came in the evening, and we made him tell us of 
Johnson, whom he had met with Burke at the house of 
Eeynolds; then we spoke of modern poets — Bums, and 
Montgomery, and I had the good luck to please the 
amiable old man by alluding to a poem of his which he 
said no one had ever mentioned to him before. ' I thought,' 
he said, ^ when I wrote it, that there was something in it, 
but as nobody took notice of it, I supposed I was mis- 
taken,' I told him I had known my father read it 
repeatedly and commend it highly. It is called ' Eeflec- 
tions ; ' I will sometime show it you, I think it excellent. 
It begins to be a monstrous long time that you have 
been away, and some murmurs are heard amongst us from 
time to time ; however, I am persuaded you are turning 
your time to good account, both for pleasure and that kind 
of improvement which only the intercourse of varied society 
can afford; therefore I shall take patience myself and 
recommend it to others. Let me hear from you soon, and 
believe me ever. 

My dear girl, your affectionate aunt, 

L. AiKiN. 

To Mrs. Taylor. 

". Stoke Newington : Jan. 27, 1803. 
When you were in town, my dear Mrs. Taylor, you 
were so kind as to express a wish of hearing from me 
sometimes, and Eliza's return to Norwich affords me so 
good an opportunity of writing that T shall no longer 
refuse myself that pleasure ; yes, pleasure I may indeed 
call it, for next to seeing and hearing from a dear friend 
there is nothing to me so gratifying as to write to one ; 
and I much wonder that among those who have leisure 
for this employment, a taste for it is not more common. 
But ^ out of sight out of mind,' is so much the way of 
the world, that I believe we must content ourselves, in 



TO MRS. TAYLOR. 125 

many cases, with a rather mortifying solution of this 
difficulty. . . . 

I am full of plans and projects for the ensuing spring, 
when it arrives ; sometimes I dream of another visit to the 
Welsh mountains — then my fancy rambles to the Highlands 
of Scotland — but one of the most agreeable of my antici- 
pations, and that which is most likely to be realised, in 
another journey to dear old Norwich; which I need not 
assure you that I shall enjoy as much as the last, and 
more I cannot say. Yes, my dear Mrs. Taylor, the 
longer I live the more am I convinced that connections 
formed in early childhood are the strongest, the most 
durable, and the most delightful of all. The image of the 
friend of infancy is associated with a thousand endearing 
recollections of those days of careless, but unclouded 
happiness, that pass so swiftly, never to return. The 
friend of riper youth is ever connected in our memory 
with some of those cares, those passions, those severe pains 
and lively pleasures that give to this period a more ex- 
quisite flavour of bitter and of sweet than to the pre- 
ceding, or perhaps any subsequent portion of life. When 
I feel my mind agitated by the too vivid ideas of scenes 
that have passed more recently, I think of Norfolk, and 
the careless days spent there among my early friends, 
and all is calm again ; of what other place can I think 
with unmingled pleasure, with perfect satisfaction ? But 
what has enticed my pen into this long strain of senti- 
mental reflection ; I fear you will not much thank me for 
anything so sombre, . . . There is a singular work lately 
published, of which I should much like to hear your 
opinion, Mary Hayes's ' Female Biography.' She is a great 
disciple of Mrs. Godwin, you know, and a zealous stickler 
for the equal rights and equal talents of our sex with the 
other ; but, alas, though I would not so much as whisper 
this to the pretended lords of the creation — 



126 LETTERS. 

Her arguments directly tend 
Against the cause she would defend. 

At the same time that she attempts to make us despise 
*the frivolous rivalry of beauty and fashion,' she holds 
forth such tremendous examples of the excesses of more 
energetic characters, that one is much inclined to imitate 
those quiet good folks who bless Grod they are no geniuses. 
However, a general biography is something like a great 
London rout, everybody is there, good, bad, and in- 
different, visitable and not visitable, so that a squeamish 
lady scarcely knows whom she may venture to speak to. 
Alas, alas ! though Miss Hayes has wisely addressed herself 
to the ladies alone, I am afraid the gentlemen will get a 
peep at her book and repeat with tenfold energy that 
women have no business with anything but nursing 
children and mending stockings. I do not think her 
book is written quite in an edifying manner neither— the 
morals are too French for my taste. 

But what are we to think of Madme. de Stael's new 
novel, that all Paris, all Greneva, and all London is read- 
ing? I hear Rousseau is revived in her, with all his 
' virtue in words and vice in actions,' and all his dangerous 
eloquence. I have not read the book yet, but we voted 
it into a lady's book society here, and had afterwards 
some doubts whether it ought to be circulated. My 
mother wickedly proposed that all works written by ladies 
should be carefully examined by a committee before they 
are admitted into the society. And now that I have 
mentioned our society, which is a great hobby horse with 
my aunt Barbauld and me, I must beg your congratula- 
tions on our spirit in setting up an institution into which 
not a single man is admitted, even to keep the accoimts. 
I must indeed whisper in your ear that it is no very easy 
matter to get the ladies to suspend their dissertations on 
new plays and new fashions to discuss the merits of books, 



TO MRS. TATLOE. 127 

and that sometimes it is rather difficult for the president, 
treasurer, and secretary, calling all at once to order, to 
obtain a hearing. But our meetings are not the less 
amusing for this. 

We had the pleasure of seeing our good friend Mr. 
Whishaw, the only person almost who has had the charity 
to come and see us this dismal weather, very lately ; he 
speaks of Norwich, and of my best friends there, with an 
enthusiasm that delights me. I ha,ve commissioned Eliza 
to remember me to all who enquire after me, and to send 
me word how everybody does ; nevertheless I hope to hear 
from you when you have leisure to write, and that a very 
good account of dear Mr. Taylor will make a part of your 
very welcome despatches. To him, with yourself and all 
your family, our fireside circle joins in cordial remem- 
brance with 

Your very affectionate 

L. AlKIN. 

To Mrs. Taylor. 

Stoke Newington: March 23, 1805. 

How is it possible, my dear Mrs. Taylor, that I can 
have been so negligent and stupid as to have suffered 
more than two months to elapse since the receipt of a 
letter from you without having answered it ? Indeed I 
know not how to give a better account of the matter than 
by saying that I have had much to do, and little to say. 
At one time my hours have been engrossed by company 
in the house ; at another my fingers have been engaged 
in employments which ojffered little food to the mind; 
lastly and chiefly, I have been loth to write till spring 
arrived to give Si fillip to my spirits. 

I have now the pleasure and satisfaction to tell you that 
I have passed, on the whole, a very tolerable winter, that 



128 LETTERS. 

I am gradually reviving with the year, and that when 
your Norfolk north-easterns have ceased to blow, I shall 
be ready to attend your first summons to come and make 
you idle a little. But may we not hope to see you in 
town for a few weeks first ? Eichard tells me that he has 
been humbly petitioning for a little of your company, and 
surely you cannot find in your heart to give him a denial. 

What an utter pause, cessation and nonplus is the 
present ! How miserably dull for us bookworms to hear ' 
of nothing new from day to day ! I am much afraid that 
we shall actually be compelled to go back to the ancients ^ 
of last year — if any of their immortal works may hitherto^ 
have escaped the rapacious hands of grocers, trunkmakers, 
and renovators of paper. I wish this rebellion had 
fortunately taken place before the two last volumes of 
Fleetwood were committed to the press, for certainly, ^ 
with a little more leisure, a man of Grodwin's talents could 
not possibly have produced so bungling, lame, and im- 
potent a catastrophe. WTiat a pity it is that he should 
have been converted by the outcries of bigots from eloquent ' 
absurdity to ponderous common sense I But we have . 
nothing piquant now-a-days. i 

My poor work does not proceed with very great [ 
rapidity. I have, however, got about a hundred lines of . 
the third epistle; and after visiting Troy, Sparta, and 
Athens, am just going to arrive at Eome at the very 
moment when the Sabine women separate the threatening . 
armies. On the whole, I consider the Eoman dames as ^ 
the queens of their sex, but there are a few ugly facts { 
against them which I do not well know what to do with. 
At one time they had a disagreeable habit of poisoning 
their husbands; but I don't think much of that, for no 
doubt the men gave them provocation. What think you 
of a heroine who has lately sprung up at Newington 
Grreen ? She was a cook maid, and having long been on 



TO MES. TAYLOR. 129 

bad terms with the footman, resolved to give their disputes 
an effectual settling. For this purpose, whilst the man 
was waiting at table, she concealed herself behind a door 
with a carving knife in her hand, and on the man's 
passing by, started out and plunged the weapon in his 
body. His life was at first thought to be in danger, and 
our heroine was sent to Newgate; but on his getting 
better she was released, because, forsooth, her mistress 
thinks it would be a pity to send her to Botany Bay ! I 
hope you have seen Scott's ' Lay of the last Minstrel ; ' I 
have read no other poem of last year that deserves to be 
compared with it. There is something in the wild and 
lawless manners of the old Scotch Borderers uncommonly 
striking. I know nothing that more irresistibly seizes the 
imagination than the adventures of valiant marauders. 
WTio can refuse an ear to the tales of Eobin Hood, or the 
history of the Buccaneers ? 

The Barbaulds are going next week to lodgings in 
town, which they have taken for a few weeks, in order to 
see everything and everybody with little trouble. They 
wish me to go and share in their gaiety ; but I feel by no 
means equal to racketing at present, and my father shows 
little inclination to entrust me to the prudence of my 
aunt, who is at least forty years younger than I am. Is 
it not a most fortunate symptom of old age to have lost 
one's curiosity and to prefer, as I do, comfort to pleasure ? 
Well, I think it pretty well to enjoy all the homebred 
satisfactions that fall to my lot. Home, to me, becomes 
every day more delightful, and its revered inhabitants 
more dear and more necessary to my happiness. Oh ! 
how could I ever bear to be separated from those who 
unite in themselves all the strongest titles to my gratitude 
and affection ! . . . . 

I have a taste, I do assure you, for the epistles of such 

K 



130 LETTEES. 

girls as Susan,* and therefore I beg you will tell her, witi i 
my kindest love, that I hope she will assume the office ^ 
of secretary to her mother, and give me the pleasure of? 
a long letter very. soon. As for you, my dear Mrs. T., i 
I know too well your numerous and important occupations I 
to expect more than the favour of a letter now and then ; ^ 
that highly-prized indulgence I hope you will never deny j 
me. . . . My mother desires me to return you her thanks i 
for some game which you were so kind as to send us. 
Our fireside begs its best remembrances to yours. 
Believe me, my dear Mrs. Taylor, 

Most warmly yours, 

L. AlKIN. 

G-ood Mr. Eoscoe has been laid up with the gout, but is ^ 
now recovered. Do you not long to see that admirable [ 
being again ? f 

To Mrs, Taylor, | 

Stoke Ne-vrington : Oct. 1805. | 
A letter of congratulation from Lucy ; how formal ! ' 
Will you say so, my dear Mrs. T. ? No ; you will give me ^ 
credit for feeling what I express, and you will be sensible ^ 
of the pleasure I take in expressing what I feel. I am f 
glad the deed is done, for till that was the case I knowf 
your maternal anxiety would be at work ; now all suspense 
is over, and has yielded the place, I hope, to pure and '' 
entire satisfaction. My father and mother beg to express f 
to you and Mr. T. their warm sympathy on this occasion"^ 
of happiness. I beg you will remember me to John in ' 
the kindest manner. ... I trust he will not fail, on" 
reaching this part of the world, to set apart a day for'^ 
Newington— we all long to give him a hearty shake of the ' 

hand I am obliged to Susan for a very charming letter, '' 

pray tell her so, and that it -shall be answered, in course, ' 
* Afterwards Mrs. Reeve. 



TO MRS. TAYLOB. 131 

Do you ask what I have been about since I came home ? 
I have been re-writing the beginning of Epistle the first, 
with some additions, and after various other alterations 
and corrections, I have begun to lengthen my web. 
Twenty or thirty new lines have conducted me from the 
vigour to the * Decline and Fall ' of the Eoman State, 
from the ruins of which I am just about to make my 
escape, and seek an asylum among the pathless forests and 
impenetrable marshes of ancient Grermany. In Latin, I 
am reading ' Cicero's Ofl&ces,' whence I gather that the 
improvements in moral philosophy, since his time, have 
been few or none ; for a purer or more rational system 
than his, or one better adapted to the actual condition of 
man, and the practical regulation of life, can scarcely be 
imagined. In Italian, I am re-reading with increased de- 
light ' Jerusalem Delivered,' which appears to me certainly 
the most sweet and interesting, though not the most sub- 
lime, of epic poems. I much question whether Boileau had 
ever read it when he spoke so contemptuously of *Le 
clinquant de Tasse.' If he had, I would give little for his 
taste. I have just discovered in myself some aptness for 
the study of Natural Philosophy, and thinking that my 
profound ignorance of its various branches might some time 
bring me to shame, and likewise that I might glean a 
few new similes and metaphors from this kind of knowledge, 
I have resolved to apply to it in good earnest, and make it 
my principal study for the winter. But within the last 
few days everything has given way to ' Practical Education,' 
which my mother and I have been studying with great 
dihgence for the benefit of Greorge's little boy, who was 
brought to us last Tuesday. My aunt Barbauld laughs 
at us excessively ; she says, ' I know that everybody reads 
works on education as pleasant books, but this is the first 
time that ever I heard of anybody's sitting gravely down 
to study them for use.' But we don't mind the laughers, 

K 2 



132 LETTERS. 

and can see no reason why a child may not as well be 
brought up after 'Practical Education' as a pudding 
made after the ' Experienced English Housekeeper.' In 
the meantime the boy is gone to school as a day-boarder, ii 
so it is only at his hours of recreation that these fine 
recipes can be tried ; all the rest will be managed in the 
usual way, as in most culinary operations a good deal is 
left to that golden rule, the rule of thumb. My time will, 
it is true, be a good deal encroached upon by the care of 
this young nestling, but you know the feelings of my 
auntship, and will believe that I do not grudge it. You 
have seen, I imagine, my father's memoir of poor Dr. 
Currie, and perhaps, likewise, a small token of my respect 
for his memory in the last magazine. I beHeve you have 
heard me speak of this most exalted being, and express 
my gratitude for the distinguished kindness with which he 
had treated me. You will believe that his death, which 
I learnt from a most affecting letter written by his son to 
my father, and which in my father's absence I opened, 
affected me deeply. A few days since, our feehngs were 
again awakened by a visit from this son — a son worthy of 
his father — who speaks of him with equal grief and pride, 
considers his little brothers with a kind of paternal aflfec- : 
tion, and appears to be prompted in every word and action 
by the hovering spirit of his father. He showed us a few 
trembling lines, traced by his dying hand, in which he 
says that he shall consider his fame as safe in the hands 
of my father ; mentions him and his ' dear friend Eoscoe 
with the strongest affection, implores a blessing on them" 
and all theirs, and expresses the hope of a meeting in ' the ; 
regions beyond the grave.' I think you and I have spoken^ 
together of the sensation caused by the handwriting of a 
dead friend, but I never felt it in its full force before. 
Such a man, such a friend — I shall never forget him ! But 
what am I doing ? this is a letter of congratulation, and I: 



i TO MRS. TAYLOR. 133 

! 

i have filled it up with sorrow. To ' rejoice with those that 

; do rejoice, and weep with those that weep ' are two duties 

I which sometimes fall upon one so nearly at the same time, 

that it is difficult to keep them distinct, they blend like 

I day and night producing a kind of twilight of the spirits, 

j calm, sober, sweet, best fitted to tender thought and va- 

! rious musing and philosophic moralizing, on the strange 

: medley which makes up the sum of human life ... I 

I forgot to tell you, among my other employments, that, as 

I literary characters must now and then descend from their 

! altitudes, I have been several days hard at work upon 

parlour curtains, which are at length hung up, to the great 

glory and satisfaction of my mother and me. You can't 

think how smart we look. I am quite stout and hearty 

in spite of this premature winter. May every blessing 

wait on you and yours is the warm wish of your 

Lucy. 

To Mrs, Taylor, 

Stoke Newington: July 1806. 

... I have of late been quite stout, and resolving to 
enjoy the full privileges of a person in health, I went, on 
New Year's day, to visit my friend Mrs Carr, whom I 
accompanied to some London parties. The most piquant 
of these was a dinner at Hoppner's, where were, besides 
Hoppner himself, who has more wit than almost any man. 
Memory Eogers, and Anacreon Moore, otherwise ' Little,' 
who is an Irishman, and told us some Irish stories with 
infinite humour. In the afternoon came the Opies ; pre- 
sently Mrs. Opie and Moore sat down to the instriunent. 
I Mrs. Opie was not in voice, but Anacreon ! upon my word 
I he gave me new ideas of the power of harmony. He sung 
us some of his own sweet little songs, set to his own music, 
and rendered doubly touching by a voice the most sweet, 



134 LETTERS. 



an utterance the most articulate, and expression the most ' 
deep and varied, that I ever witnessed. No wonder this ' 
little man is a pet with duchesses ! What can be better 
fitted for a plaything of the great than a ruddy joyous ( 
laughing young Irishman, poor but not humble, a wit, j 
poet, and musician, who is willing to devote his charming ' 
talents to their entertainment for the sake of being ad- 
mitted to their tables, and honoured with their fami- 
liarity ? 

As I was determined to ' exert my energies,' I readily 
accompanied my friends on board Mr. W. Carr's ship, 
whence we saw Nelson's body carried in procession up the ' 
river. The ships with their lowered fla-gs, the dark boats 
of the river fencibles, the magnificent barges of His Ma- ^ 
jesty and the city companies, and above all, the mournful ^ 
notes of distant music, and the deep sound of the single 
minute-gun, the smoke of which floated heavily along the ■ 
surface of the river, conspired to form a solemn, sober, and ' 
appropriate pomp, which I found awfully aflfecting. It f 
did but increase my eagerness to witness the closing scene e 
of this great pageant exhibited the next day at St. Paul's. 
Richard, who was our active and attentive squire, wiU ' 
probably have given you an account of our adventures on 
this occasion, and the order of procession you would \ 
see in the papers ; but perhaps you might not particularly ^ 
attend to a circumstance which struck me most forcibly — 
the union of all ranks, from the heir-apparent to the 
common sailor, in doing honour to the departed hero. In ^ 
fact, the royal band of brothers, with their stately figures, 
splendid uniforms, and sober majestic deportment, roused, 
even in me, a transient emotion of loyalty ; but when the ^ 
noble Highlanders and other regiments marched in who van- 
quished Buonaparte's Invincibles in Egypt, and, reversing 
their arms, stood hiding their faces with eveiy mark of 
heartfelt sorrow, and especially when the victorious captains 



TO MKS. TAYLOR. 135 

of Trafalgar showed their weather-beaten and undaunted 
fronts, following the bier in silent mournful state, and 
when, at length, the gallant tars appeared bearing in their 
hands the tattered and blood-stained colours of the ^ Vic- 
tory ' — and I saw one of the poor fellows wiping his eyes 
by stealth on the end of the flag he was holding up — I 
cannot express to you all the proud, heroic, patriot feelings 
that took possession of my heart, and made tears a privi- 
lege and luxury. No, on that day an Englishman could 
not despair of his country ! And now, after this taste of 
th« gaieties and glories of the great city, I am returned to 
my snug little home, which is at present, however, less 
snug than usual. The Estlins of Bristol are on a visit to 
the Barbaulds and we meet almost daily. . . . Miss 
Edgeworth's ' Leonora ' is full of wit, observation, and good 
sense : if it falls in your way it will entertain you much. 
I will write to Sally * at my first leisure interval, but 
when that will arrive, I cannot guess. Melancholy indeed 
is the face of public affairs ; sometimes it infects me with 
gloom ; but so much more to us is our own fireside than 
all the world besides, that whilst we see happy faces there, 
we are half inclined to say, ' Let the world wag ! ' When 
I wish to cloak indifference in philosophy, I think how 
good comes out of evil, and evil out of good, and on the 
whole how impossible it is to tell which is which. Pray 
remember me most kindly to the little circle respecting 
whom I can never be indifferent, including therein Mrs. 
Enfield, from whom my mother has just had a very affec- 
tionate letter, and Eliza. We were all quite well here ; 
my aunt Barbauld hears as quick as ever. Eichard tells 
me that we are to see his father soon, at which I rejoice 
not a little, for after all, what pen can convey a tenth 
part of what one, that is 7, wish to say to my friends ? 
For instance, I have now written almost a pamphlet, and 
* Wss Sarah Taylor, afterwards Mrs. John Austin. 



136 LETTERS. 

yet I feel as if I had but just got into chat with you. I 
have scarce left room to say, my best of friends. Adieu. 

To Mr, Taylor, 

Broad St. Buildings : August 1806. 

Here I come at last, my dear sir, to have a little chat 
upon paper with you, and wipe off the long reproach of 
faithless vows and promises unperformed. My party — 
aye ! after all your promises, to steal off just that very 
afternoon, I sha'n't forget that yet awhile, I promise you — 
and such a party ! If it was not mentioned in the ' Mom- 
i ng Post,' it must have been by some strange negligence in 
their quid-nuncs. Vexed I was, to be sure, that Mr. Taylor 
did not grace and enliven my circle with his attic wit, his 
store of anecdote, &c. It was very well I did not do like 

Mr. when he gave a grand ball the other night. 

After supper, the good gentleman's heart being warmed, 
he rose to make a speech to his ' dear five hundred friends,' 
in which he told them he had invited several members of 
parliament and other people of consequence, but that 
unluckily the best and genteelest part of his acquaintance 
had all sent excuses. 

I wrote Mrs. Taylor a very full and true account of all 
our wedding proceedings, of which, I suppose, she will 
communicate to you — as much as is proper. If you wish 
to know what we are engaged in at this present writing, 
let me have the honour to tell you that we are sitting up 
for company. Do you not think that we are much to be 
envied ? This house is so changed, you certainly never 
would know it for the same; and the bride looks so 
blooming and pretty, it would do you good to take a 
salute of her. Suppose you come to town on purpose ! 
Immediately on their return, the happy pair was greeted 
with a most elegant epistle from ' Your humble servants. 



TO MPx. TAYLOR. 137 

the marrow bones, cleavers, and drummers of the parish 
of St. Botolph,' whom, as the alternative was *pay or 
play,' or rather as they must be paid at any rate, there 
was no doubt about bribing to silence. 

Saint Andrew's brave bells did so loud and so clear ring, 
You'd have given five pounds to have been out of their hearing. 

I think their house should be called Pic-nic Hall, for it 
is almost furnished by the contributions of friends. Talk- 
ing on gay and pleasant subjects, pray have you seen a 
very facetious little book called ' The Miseries of Human 
Life/ in a series of dialogues between Messrs. Sensitive 
and Testy? It is really a most amusing performance, 
and shows a world of observation, for there is scarcely any 
class of minor calamities and daily rubs, which has not 
found a place, except, indeed, such as are peculiar to our 
unfortunate sex ; for the ' Supplementary Sighs ' of Mrs. 
Testy are miserably defective. 

My father and mother were not particularly delighted 

with their expedition to Gr 's, as far as the beauties of 

natui'e were concerned. My father heard there an anec- 
dote which will give you an idea of the extreme barbarity 
of the fen country. A Cambridge physician being sent 
for to a patient in that part, and finding the road scarcely 
passable, though it was the middle of summer, enquired 
of his conductor, a simple country lad, what the people 
could possibly do for medical assistance in winter ? * 0, 
sir,' repHed the gawky, 'in winter they die a natural 
death ! ' My father has got something from his fen ex- 
pedition however, namely, a descriptive letter for the 
Athenaeum, for which Dr. Falkener has also sent a disser- 
tation on the Elysian fields. There is a man at Acle, 
whose name I forget, who has written to say that if my 
father will accept of his service for the Athenaeum, his 
mind will be found ' a perpetual source of poetic and 
prosaic strength ; ' he confesses, however, that there is a 



138 LETTERS. 

kind of confusion in his head, but hopes my father will 
be so good as to *put him in order.' 0, the Norfolk 
geniuses ! Poor Dr. Parr ! do you hear that aU his flat- 
tering epistles to Lord Chedworth are printed, and that it 
appears in the course of the correspondence, that the 
pompous inscription on a silver tureen which he begged 
from his lordship, in which he is called ' doctissimus,' and 
I know not what, was composed by no other than the 
reverend doctor himself ? As Dr. Parr was not subpoenaed, 
but volunteered his evidence, I think this revenge on the 
part of the executors is very fair, but it will chafe the 
lion. 

I hope you are in no very great hurry to get Susan 
home again ; there are those who have a plot to stop her 
in her way, I can assure you. 

If my letter is full of blots and blunders, allow, I pray 
you, for a man who is putting up pictures in the room : he 
and Anne alternately perplex me — one by knocking nails, 
the other by asking my advice. Here come visitors — 
adieu, my dear sir. 

Believe me, ever yours, 

L. AlKIN. 

To Mrs, Taylor, 

Stoke Newington: April 1814, 
My dear Friend — In your present deprivation of Sarah's 
company, I shall be particularly glad if my pen may 
help to amuse one of your leisure half hours ; to you it is 
always easy and always a pleasure to me to write, and at 
a time like this can topics be wanting ? ... In the fat€ of 
Europe, what food for meditation ! The first, the most 
welcome, thought that strikes me is, that for sovereigns 
as for private persons, for nations as for individuals, it is 
good to have been afl9.icted. Could anything less than 



TO MRS. TAYLOR. 139 

the severe lessons they have received have taught so much 
political wisdom to the French people, such a magna- 
nimous clemency to the allied sovereigns ? How great and 
important a step must opinion have been silently making 
when a constitution as free as that which five-and-twenty 
years ago half the powers of Europe armed to prevent the 
French from forcing upon their late king, is offered 
to the acceptance of his brother under the sanction of 
the mightiest despot of Europe and Asia, and with the 
acquiescence of all the potentates who took part in the 
former quarrel: when the great principle that foreign 
nations should take no part in regulating the internal 
government of a country seems admitted by all, and when 
no partition of the territories of a long hated and feared, 
now vanquished and prostrate nation, is even hinted at by 
any of the victors ! 

The overthrow of the tyrant and his works, with all its 
details, as the release of prisoners, the restoration of their 
rights to the wronged, &c. sounds like the adventure of 
some peer of Charlemagne, or knight of fairy-land, when, 
having vanquished the giant in fight, he snatches the rusty 
keys from his side, enters the castle and unlocks all its 
dismal dungeons : one ceremony only has been omitted, the 
decapitation of said giant, and that unpicturesque omis- 
sion alone will spoil the subject for future epic poets. For 
the philosopher and moralist it spoils nothing; that the bold 
bad man who has filled Europe with blood and slaughter 
should be permitted, and should endure to live, degraded 
and pensioned, is the finest and most impressive satire on 
the false greatness of a conqueror that history has ever 
read to ages. I should have grieved if the villain had 
extorted from us one phrase of admiration by a death 
generously voluntary like that of Otho. But enough on 
a subject on which you will have thought so much better 
than I can do. I will end by giving you an anecdote 



140 LETTEES. 

which will please you and which I believe authentic. Some 
years ago, the Emperor Alexander had the curiosity to ask 
an Englishman for the explanation of the terms Whig and 
Tory, and having received it, ' I believe,' said he, ' I am 
the only Whig in my dominions.' How welcome in every 
view is the idea of peace ! among other benefits I think it 
will tend to the advancement of solid learning. WTien that 
intense interest which the events of the war have inspired in 
public affairs is at an end, the active minds of men must 
seek for exercise in science, and in those more solid 
branches of literature which appear to me at present in a 
rather neglected state ; novels and novel-like poems will 
not then engross the whole conversation of reading people ; 
deeper studies may recover a vogue which they seem to 
me to have lost, I shall, for my part, hail the day when 
the state of public feeling shall prompt me to lay aside 
my idle trade of tale-weaving, for the completion of that 
historic design which I desire to regard as the basis of my 
highest literary hopes. At present, however, I am en- 
deavouring to form to my satisfaction that long-suspended 
history of the heart, of which I have spoken to you so 
often. The vision that at present flits before my eyes 
clothed in the fairest colours, my favourite castle in the 
ail-, exhibits to me the good city of Paris, and myself sur- 
veying its numberless objects of interest and curiosity, but 
when, or how, or whether ever this charming dream is to 
be realised, I know not; I only mention it as the object 
towards which the eyes of my mind are directed, should 
a favourable opportunity and eUgible companions offer. 
I have made up my mind to believe that the profits of 
my little tale cannot more satisfactorily be expended, but 
in this case the will and the pecuniary means go but for 
little in fm*nishing the vjay .... There is at present a 
good opening for a new candidate for public favour in this 
branch. * Patronage,' with all its merit, has not satisfied 



TO MRS. TAYLOR. 141 

the expectations of the public, because tliey were raised 
to an extravagant pitch ; the same may be said of ' The 
Wanderer,' that is, that it has disappointed high expecta- 
tions, but certainly with more fault of the author, for it 
seems to me, at least in most points, a very indifferent 
work. Mrs. Inchbald, alas ! suffers her enchanting pen 
to lie idle, and all our other writers are far inferior. Sarah 
is so full of engagements that we have only had a call 
from her as yet, but she promises us a longer visit soon ; 
she looks remarkably well. My father and mother join 
in every affectionate wish to you and yours. BeHeve me, 
my best friend. 

Gratefully and affectionately yours, 

L. AlKIN. 

To Mrs, Taylor. 

/^ Stoke Newington: August 1816. 

My dearest Friend — I have been longing to converse 
with you by the only mode at present in our power, and 
nothing but an extraordinary press of interesting occupa- 
tion could have held me silent to this time. 

What delightful satisfaction have I had in recurring to 
those sacred hours which we were permitted to pass 
together ! Who can express the cheerfulness, the vigour, 
the sense of inward refreshment, procured by such expan- 
sions of the heart and mind ? To meet a kindred soul, 
whose intuitive sympathy gives the power of clothing in 
words thoughts which must otherwise have bloomed 
and died in long and joyless succession within the dark 
recesses of the bosom, is a boon more bright than all the 
fabled gifts of fairy benefactors, and one in which there 
seems to be as much of spell and talisman. What is the 
charm, my friend, by which you thread the whole labyrinth 
of my bosom, and find access to cells of which I myself 



142 LETTERS. 

must have forgotten the existence ? How is it that every 
conversation with you seems an event in my life, and to 
be treasured among its dearest and most sacred recol- 
lections ? . . . Since we parted, everything has prospered 
with me. First, my mother's arm is much better ; she is 
now able to work at her needle, and in her garden as 
before, and I have the satisfaction of believing that my 
perseverance in rubbing the limb night and morning has 
principally contributed to this great amendment. 

Now that she is able to pursue her usual occupation, I 
am completely restored to mine, and Elizabeth goes on 
with increasing facility and satisfaction. Your opinion 
on the advantages of this mode of writing history, is pecu- 
liarly gratifying to me. It appears to me that a historian 
who undertakes to narrate the events of centuries must 
necessarily neglect the illustration of their Hterature, their 
biography, the manners, and domestic morals ; but are not 
these, to the great body of readers, at once the most in- 
structive, and the most amusiDg branches of the knowledge 
of past ages ? On the other hand, the mere antiquarian 
presents all the minuter parts of this knowledge in a detail 
which is often dry and disgusting ; he is frequently desti- 
tute of all powers of writing, and almost always void of 
that philosophical spirit which combines, which generalises, 
and infers. Yet the writer of essays on the progress of 
civilisation, on manners, &c. is still worse ; he is generally 
a Scotch or French metaphysician, who sets out with a 
system ; if the former, he gives you facts so exaggerated, 
so embellished, or so distorted, that you would give the 
world to get clear out of your head all the error that he 
has put into it. All these things I see and feel, and of 
course I promise myself that my work shall be of a kind 
free from all the objections of all the others; yet thus it 
will not be, or if it is, it will have faults of its own as 
great, perhaps, as theirs. In short, perfection and man ! To 



TO MES. TAYLOR. 143 

do our best, and estimate our efforts with humility, is all 
that remains, and both shall be my study. In the midst 
of these labours for a public which, perhaps, will neither 
thank nor reward me, I am devoting two or three hours 
of each day to a private object in which I anticipate no 
disappointment. We have got with us Greorge's daughter, 
a girl of thirteen, to whose education we thought it right 
to lend a hand. A delightful disposition we all knew that 
L. possessed, and a little face that it was pleasure to look 
upon, but we were not prepared to find in her, combined 
with extreme diligence and perfect docility, a quickness of 
apprehension very uncommon, an awakened and enquiring 
mind, and acquisitions which showed that of moderate ad- 
vantages the best had been made. All these discoveries 
have endeared her to us extremely ; she is indeed the 
darling of my father and mother, and to me, at once pupil, 
plaything, and companion. It is impossible for me to 
grudge the hours which I devote to her, and which are 
taken, for the most part, from frivolous books and more 
frivolous visits. The more there is for head and heart in 
life, the happier we are. . , . We also expect the Carrs, 
with whom I spent a delightful day last Monday. Mr. 
Whishaw was there in his highest spirits. Oh, that you could 
have heard his history of Lady Cork's inviting, as a lion^ a 
black agent sent hither by the Emperor of Hayti to engage 
schoolmasters ! How the poor man's head was gradually 
so turned by this extraordinary honour, that at length he 
thought it necessary to be at home himself in his lodging 
of one room and two closets — how he petitioned his 
sovereign to send royal presents to the ladies who had 
been so kind to him — and how the sweetmeats which came 
in consequence, and which he had announced, were stopped 
for the duties, and sold ' by inch of candle at the long 
room of the custom house.' An excellent satire he made 
it on the ridiculous passion of some fashionable women for 



144 LETTERS. 

having people of every possible kind of notoriety at their 
routs, utterly regardless of the mischief which their selfish | 
and foolish patronage produces. Mr. WTiishaw is just set 
off for Holland and Flanders, whence he will doubtless 
return 'full of matter.' Kindest regards from all this 
house to the whole of your dear family. Does Mr. Taylor ^ 
mean to cheat us of his London visit ? I hope not. 
Ever my best friend. 

Most affectionately yours, 

L. AlKIN. 



To Mrs, Taylor. 



[ 



Stoke Newington : Nov. 29, 1818. S 

For once, my beloved friend, it is better to be at a dis- 
tance from you than near ; convalescent as, I thank Grod, '. 
we learn you to be, you must not yet be tempted to talk ; 
and your chamber door would be closed against me " 
in person, whilst my letter will be admitted without f 
scruple, for I hear that you read much, and happy I am j 
that you find yourself able, knowing how greatly it de- '^ 
lights you. To catch new hints for the reflections which 
your mind furnishes in such inexhaustible abundance is, 
you have often told me, the thing which you seek after 
with the greatest earnestness; but how difficult is it to 
fiunish novelty to you! I wonder whether you ever 
happened to read the thing I was looking at last night, 
' Ben Jonson's Discoveries ; ' remarks, or reflections, they 
might have been called. They leave me with a high 
opinion of the moral principles, no less than the mental 
power, of the learned old poet ; and there is no difficulty 
in understanding how such a man, though intemperate in . 
his habits, and probably somewhat coarse in his manners, ^ 
should have been the chosen companion, nay, the ^ guide, 
philosopher, and friend,' of the virtuous and elegant -minded 



TO MRS. TAYLOR. 145 

Falkland, as well as others of the most distinguished men 
of that age of giants, with which I am now beginning to 
form an intimacy. Will you go with me some evening, 
incog,, to the clnb at the Mitre ? Ealeigh founded it, and 
we have for members^ among others, Selden, Cotton, Ben 
Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, and that pleasant fellow, 
who is so full of his jokes, Will Shakspeare. Donne, too, 
is one of us ; of whom Jonson says, that his poems will 
perish for want of being understood, and, he might l^ave 
added, for want of being poetry; yet they are full of 
matter, and he lashes, with a learned hand, the vices and 
follies of the age. And all these men were the subjects, 
and some of them the adulators, of that paltry king and 
pedant James ! I wish I had a better centre figure for 
my picture. It must be like Barry's picture of the other 
world — in front, a number of separate groups of great- 
souled men in Elysium ; in a corner, pride, licentiousness, 
and all the vices of courts, with the leg of a garter-knight 
in Tartarus. Thus, my friend, my busy mind 

Lives in former times and places, 
Holds communion with the dead ; 

but not, you will well believe me, to the exclusion of 
living worth and hving friendship ; no, nor to the exclusions 
of the glorious scene of honourable and benevolent 
exertion in every line, and of continual advancement in 
every science and every elegant or useful art, which is 
happily opened to the eyes of this generation. Surely the 
spirit of Howard beholds our Bennet, our Buxton, our 
excellent Mrs. Fry, and smiles. Even government seems 
awakened to the importance of the subject; and our prison 
management will not, I trust, be much longer a source of 
vice and wretchedness, and a national opprobrium. I 
begin, too, to have some idea that the exertions of the 
missionaries in various remote corners of the earth, will at 
last produce some good ; they are growing wiser by the 

L 



146 LETTEES. 

warning of past failures, and I cannot think that so much 
good intention and disinterested exertion will or can be 
thrown away. 

Arthur's situation gives him opportunities of hearing of 
all the improvements in science and the arts ; and I re- 
joice to learn how many laudable and interesting objects 
he has the power and the constant will to promote. The 
Marchioness of Hastings, who is every way worthy to be 
the honoured friend of my excellent friend Mrs. Fletcher, 
lately applied to Arthur to find some workman able to 
spin a quantity of exquisitely fine wool, brought to her 
from India, which no common artificer would undertake. 
He succeeded, and the Marchioness in return has conceived 
a lively interest in his objects, and will procure for the 
Society specimens, quite new to Europe, of the vegetable 
products of India. Dr. Leech is indefatigable in extend- 
ing and perfecting and placing in scientific arrangement 
the zoological collection of the British Museum; in his 
hands, this national repository will soon become as noble 
a school for the naturalist as it now is for the draughts- 
man and sculptor. 

Campbell is lecturing at the Liverpool Institution on 
Poetry, in a manner, E. writes to me, entirely worthy 
of the subject, and of his reputation. This gratifies me 
much. I am still a little jealous for my first love, though 
I myself have ceased to court her : and I have sometimes 
feared that science, with her rich train of utilities, would 
usurp upon the due honours of the dowerless house. 
You will be glad to hear that Montgomery expects soon [ 
to put to press a new volume of poems, after a four years' 
interval. I know not the subjects, but am inclined to 
hope something good. 

Have I not now given you too much ? I fear I may ; and ' 
must I close without expressing how dear, how very dear, the 
Hfe and health of my earliest, most revered, and most beloved 



TO MRS. TAYLOR. 147 

friend must ever be to this heart, grateful as it is for all 
her love and all her kindness, and how agonising has 
been my late anxiety on her account ? With my father 
and mother's most affectionate regards to yourself and to 
dear Mr. Taylor, I rest 

Ever yours, 

L. AlKIN. 

To Mrs, Taylor. 

Stoke Newington: Sept. 1819. 
My dear Friend — May I congratulate you on parting 
with so dear a daughter, so sweet a companion and friend ? 
Yes, for it is to the man of her heart, who deserves her 
by his talents, his virtues, his love, and his constancy. 
Fair and happy are their prospects ; may they long live 
to enjoy their felicity, and you, my dear friend, to partake 
in it. I will beg of you to tell the bride, with my kind 
love, that I long to congratulate her in person, and that I 
hope we shall contrive, in spite of all the obstacles of 
wicked London, to meet now and then in a rational 
manner. Of your good and busy sons we do not see so 
much as, I believe, all parties could wish, but Mr. Whishaw 
was so good as to bring Kichard to us one day last week, 
and we all thought liim looking remarkably well — as if 
he was just come from enjoying a great deal of pleasure 
with all whom he loves at Norwich. ... I am proceeding 
in my task, but slowly and anxiously. Success has made 
me timid ; like Horace's soldier, I am fearful of risking 
anything audacious now I have something to lose : and it 
is so difficult to treat that reign of James without mani- 
festing what the church and king party will be apt to call 
a factious spirit. Yet truth must and shall by me be told. 
I have lately had the good fortune to form an acquaint- 
ance with Mr. Butler, the mouth-piece of the English 

L 2 



148 LETTERS. 

Catholics, who, after thirty or forty years of unceasing' 
efforts to obtain for his church the restoration of civil 
rights, approaches, I trust, to the accomplishment of his 
wishes. Perhaps you have seen some of his curious and 
laborious works. I have derived considerable instruction 
from his ' Memoirs of English Catholics since the Eeforma- 
tion,' and still more from some books which he has lent 
nie. I believe few Protestants have any adequate idea 
of the degree of persecution which they underwent 
during James's reign, and which I shall not fail to state 
very fully. 

You have read, I hope, that excellent work of Lord 
John Eussell's. How soitTicZ it is ! What excellent feeling, 
what judgment, what deep thinking! How honourable 
to a lord of seven-and-twenty ! 

I have been wishing you in London very often lately ; 
we have had the society of the woman to whom I should 
most of all desire to introduce you — dear and excellent 
Mrs. Fletcher, of Edinburgh. She brought with her her 
younger son, and two younger daughters — all fair branches 
of so fair a stock. . . . My father was perfectly astonished 
and delighted at the quantity of laughter which she and I 
contrived to keep up between us. I think you would 
come to a better opinion of girls, if you were to see some 
that I could show you. ... On the whole, and from 
various causes, I cannot help thinking that we English- 
women have risen more in the scale of things within the 
last twenty years, than within the preceding two hundred ; 
and what is become of the men's jealousy of female ac- 
quirements ? I see nothing left of it — to their praise, be 
it spoken ; and it is, I believe, not fifty years since Dr. 
Grregory left as a legacy to his daughters the injunction 
to conceal their wit, and even their good sense, because it 
would disgust the sex they were born to please ! 

My aunt Barbauld, though complaining a little occa- 



TO MRS. TAYLOR. 149 

sionally, has contrived to make many visits and enjoy, I 
think, a great deal of pleasure this summer. My dear 
father and mother continue, on the whole, in very good 
health. They unite in kindest remembrances and sincere 
good wishes to you all. Pray give my kindest love to 
dear Susan. I should be very thankful for a letter from 
her, to tell me how you all find yourselves. I know too 
well what writing costs you. 

Ever, my best friend. 
Your most affectionate 

L. AlKIN. 

To Mrs, Mallet 

Hampstead : Sept. 1827. 
My dear Mrs. Mallet — I am glad to snatch this oppor- 
tunity of sending you a short greeting, for it seems already 
a dreary length of time since you left us, and yet your 
absence is to last much longer. I should have sent you a 
message, at least, by Mr. Mallet, if I had seen him when 
he called ; but I was in bed with one of my good-for- 
nothing headaches : however, I have been quite well since, 
and if it was the tax I was to pay for my excursion to 
Mymms, I ought not to complain, for it was full of a 
variety of entertainment and enjoyment : the Cambridge 
excursion itself was scarcely more successful. Lord 
Salisbury was obliging enough to show us himself the 
mementoes of Queen Elizabeth remaining at Hatfield, 
and exceedingly curious and interesting I found them : 
there is her cradle, her pedigree from Adam, the tower 
in which her sister kept her prisoner, with the spike upon 
it, intended, they say, for her head; there is the oak 
under which she was informed of her own accession. Her 
portrait, presented by herself to Burleigh, is also there, with 
Burleigh's own, that of his son Eobert, and several others 



150 LETTERS. 

of great historic interest, especially a Charles and a 
Strafford, both Vandyke's. The house itself is wonder- 
fully magnificent. It is well observed, I think by Price, 
that the sky line in the mansions of that time is pecu- 
liarly rich and picturesque, from the turrets, domes, and 
open battlements, and of this Hatfield is a fine example ; 
at a distance you think you see a town, such is the variety 
of outline. 

We dined at G-orhambury, which is not, alas, the old 
mansion of the Bacons ; but it is full of their portraits, 
with copies of which, and many others. Lady Yerulam 
has illustrated my Elizabeth. The Heygates themselves 
occupy a very noble house of the same age, so that every- 
thing contributed to assist my associations. Sir T. More 
had a seat in Mymms parish, and they point out his pew 
in the church. 

I hope to hear that your visit is passing as pleasantly 
as mine. I already learn that Henry is well, which is a 

most essential condition of your enjoyment I am 

just going to dine at the Baillies, with the Sothebys and a 
few more, and expect a pleasant party. Mrs. Grreaves and 
I shall adjourn for an hour to the committee at Mr. Eeid's 
— we are to vote in two new members without Mr. Mallet's 
sanction. Of books, I think we shall not order many, but 
I shall propose Montgomery's new poems. 

INIy mother desires her kindest regards to Mr. M. and 
yourself, and pray believe me. 

Very truly yours, 

L. AlKIN. 

To Mr, and Mrs. Mallet. 

Hampstead: Sept. 25, 1831. 
Many thanks, my dear friends, for your kind joint 
letter. It is delightful to receive such letters, and much 



TO MB. AND MES. MALLET. 151 

more delightful to think that the occasion for any letters 
will soon cease. 

Hampstead has been the abomination of desolation to 
me in your absence. I have likened myself to the old 
watercress woman in the 'Deserted Village.' Possibly 
I may have felt it the more because I was tantalized with 
the hope of a little excursion myself. Arthur was to have 
taken me to explore the beauties of Tunbridge ; but, most 
unfortunately, he was seized with a very severe bilious 
attack, which disabled him during the only week it was 
possible for him to go — but he is quite recovered, and that 
is the great thing. 

Some pleasure, however, I have had, which I wished 
you could have shared. Mr. and Mrs. Kenrick have been 
spending a week at Hampstead, which has given occasion 
to two or three pleasant enough little parties in our own 
little set. 

I always very much enjoy Mr. Kenrick's company.* 
He has — what has he not to make his conversation inter- 
esting? — learning, with taste and judgment to teach 
it when to show and when to conceal itself; wit, of a 
high order ; a most amiable disposition, and a sober zeal 
for every great interest of mankind. Last Sunday he 
preached here, and the excellent Eajah came to hear him, 
taking first a breakfast at Mr. Gr. K.'s, to which they were 
so good as to invite me. The Eajah loses nothing by a 
second view — quite the contrary. We drew from him a 
very interesting account of the lawsuit he had to main- 
tain against his relations, who wanted to deprive him of 
his inheritance on account of his change of religion. 

' Many,' he said, ' would have given way to them, but I, 
no ! I withstood them, and I succeeded.' The particu- 
lars are too long to write, you shall have them when we 
meet. He was brought up as a Pundit, and this enabled 

* The Eev. John Kenrick, of YorL 



152 LETTERS. 

him to take a valid ground of defence. The best is, that 
he has promised me a second visit, and I shall take care 
to remind him of it when you return, Xo one can stand 
better than he does the severe test of talking of oneself. 
He does it with a dignified simplicity which marks the 
real man of merit, having certainly the further advantage 
of being a born and bred gentleman. 

This last phi'ase reminds me to tell you that I have had 
the honour of a call from Lord Eliot, who brought the 
additional papers he had promised, and was accompanied 
by a very pleasing lady, his sister. I was pleased with 
his conversation, and thought him intelligent, but I cer- 
tainly sympathise more with his patriot ancestor than he 
does 

I have to brag that I am writing very diligently, partly 
to preserve myself from ennui, I even begin to build 
castles, and to say, ' At this rate — next spring.' But then 
Experience thrusts forth her ugly, wrinkled visage, and 
says, ^ Yes, but you must not expect to go on at this rate.' 
We shall see, however. I am much better in health. 

My dear friends, adieu ; happy words till we meet ! 
Believe me sincerely and affectionately yours, 

L. AlKIN. 

To Mr, Mallet 

Jan. 1835. 
Dear Sir — I hoped to have called on you and Mrs. Mallet 
to-day, but I do not find myself equal to it. I want to talk 
with you of the excellent man who is gone. From my 
childhood I have been in the habit of seeing him from 
time to time, when he used to call on my father, whom he 
valued both for his own sake and for the sake of my 
grandfather at Warrington. Xo one who knew him could 
help loving him, but what author of our day has been 



TO ME. MALLET. 153 

SO miicli maligned. For the honour of the Whig ministry 
one may wish they had conferred some mark of es- 
teem on such a man as Mr. Malthus ; but what could it 
have added to him? He possessed a competence, and 
there was so much of the true philosopher about him 
that I should have grieved to see him a clerical sinecurist, 
instead of the useful and respected head of a college. 

I hope the duty of setting his character as a man and an 
author before the public will fall into very good hands. 
In his case this is more than usually important. I did 
not like the tone of j^esterday's notice of him in the 
' Morning Chronicle.' Who is there that would be likely 
to do him justice ? Some friend should take it up, with 
all his regret and his affection full upon him. 

Believe me, very truly yours, 

L. AlKIN. 

To Mrs, Mallet 

Hampstead : Oct. 6, 1836. 
No, my dear friend; at least, my lazy aversion to 
letter-writing has not gained such a head as to prevent my 
returning your kind greeting, and telling you how much 
I want you home again. Hampstead is almost a desert : 
the Eales away — Mrs. Grreaves away — the Misses Baillie 
not expected till to-morrow. 

Last week the weather was dismally wet and stormy 
with us ; no going out, and I was three whole days with- 
out seeing a face but those of my servants and the car- 
penter; but for the amusement of having a book-case moved 
out of my dressing-room, and a new carpet put down in 
\ it, I know not how I should have survived the dullness of 
my solitude. You remember Miss Edge worth makes 
Lord Glenthorn put off shooting himself from ennui till he 
had seen his new pig-stye built, and I am decidedly of 



154 LETTERS. ' 

. ! 

opinion that nobody perpetrates such a deed with a car- j 
penter in the house. Yesterday the heavens began to 
smile, and to-day I had my gardener — better still than 
the carpenter — and also took a walk : ^ II faut du mouve- 

mentj' as Mr. Whishaw says Mr. Whishaw has not j 

been near me yet. I wonder whether he has been out ! 
of town again, or whether he or his coachman thinks the 
weather not settled enough to venture to Hampstead. 

******** j 

I used to receive daily a morning visit from a lady well, 
or, perhaps I ought rather to say, much known in London 
circles. She was a prodigious gossip, and always boasted 
of having the earliest information of everybody's move- 
ments; and sometimes I found her chit-chat amusing j 
enough. But then she was so little select in her topics, ( 
that she would as readily give you an account of the ( 
squabbles of cabmen in the street, in their own vulgar 
slang, as of a horticultural breakfast, a new opera, or the 
fete of a duchess. She was a mighty politician, too ; but 
she seemed to me absolutely O'Connell mad, and I could , 
not help suspecting that she was a papist at heart, and I 
she really gave her tongue such liberties in speaking of I 
the Conservatives, that I was ashamed even to listen to her. I 
At last my patience and tolerance were quite exhausted, j 
and I fairly desired her to come no more to my house. ' 
Though a daily visitor was something of a resource to me, 
I hitherto find myself all the happier for being rid of a 
person of so very unedifying a character and conversation, * 
and I think it very unlikely at present that Maciame 
' Morning Chronicle ' and I should make up our quarrel. I 
content myself at present with a weekly visit from Miss 
' Examiner,^ a better-bred person. You will think all this 
mighty flimsy ; but I have nothing better to offer you at 
present, during so dead a time, so I hope you will accept 



TO MRS. MALLET. 155 

it for my sake With best regards to Mr. Mallet 

and the boys, pray believe me, 

Ever truly yours, 

L. AlKIN. 

To Mrs, Mallet 

Hampstead: Oct. 5, 1838. 

My dear Mrs. Mallet — Many thanks for your kind letter, 
I have been wishing to hear of you, and was glad to have 
so good an account upon the whole, though I much com- 
miserated your early rising and wsiter-swilling, may one 
say ? I have no idea how any human stomach can ever 
contain the six glasses. I am sure you, at least, deserve a 
cure of all ills. . . Book-committee to-morrow night, when 
we shall miss Mr. Mallet, the more as Mr. K. is absent also. 
I know of nothing to propose, but if we can find nothing 
now, we may save our money till another time ; better 
than buying, as we did last time, an account of a fellow- 
prisoner of Pellico, a Frenchman, whose name I forget, 
whose narrative is translated by Prandi, with many omis- 
sions, he says, of the sentimental passages, and attempts 
to bring it to sobriety and simplicity. It was little worth 
the labour, being in its present state duller than if it had 
been written by the heaviest Dutchman, and not a whit 
the less like a romance for that. 

I have just been reading, in the way of business, Scott's 
' Life of Dryden.' One anecdote of him and his book- 
seller pleased me. Jacob Tonson, his publisher, being him- 
self a staunch Whig, wanted to persuade Dryden to dedicate 
his ' Virgil ' to King William, which he foresaw would be 
difi&cult, after all the wiitings and actings of the poet in 
the former reigns. To prepare the way, he ordered the 
engraver employed to touch up the old prints of Ogilvy's 
' Virgil ' for the new translation, to aggravate the nose of 
pious ^neas into a manifest resemblance of the eagle's 



156 LETTERS. 

beak of his majesty. This was done, with ludicrous effect ; 
but, after all, the poet would not dedicate, but left 
the nose plante la, without any apology. This biography 
does not appear to me one of Scott's better performances. 
It is slovenly in style, very low in moral sentiment and 
estimate, deeply tinged with party spirit, and by no means 
exquisite in literary taste and critical remark. No man 
does justice to the public who presumes to offer it a post- 
haste biography and criticism of such a poet as Dryden. 

I have had a letter from Dr. Channing, in which, among 
other agreeable matters, he gives me a pleasing account of a 
visit which he made while in England to Mr. Wilberforce. 
' I could not but respect him,' he says, ' though I saw not 
a sign of intellectual force. He asked me about the Unit- 
arians of Boston, not suspecting me of the heresy ; and when 
I told him that I was one, though some of his family did 
not receive the communication with the kindness which 
hospitality required, the good old man went on to talk with 
undiminished complacency. On my leaving him, he took 
me into his study, gave me to understand that he thought 
more of a man's spirit or temper than his opinions, and 
chose to write m}'- name and his own on a pamphlet, which 
he presented to me as a memorial of our interview.' 

Vexatious ! I was bent upon finishing this letter yes- 
terday, that it might be certain to reach you during Mr. 
Whishaw's stay, but one interruption succeeded another 
the whole day, and I have been obliged to keep it for 
another day's post. I still hope, however, that it may be 
in time. . . Your gardener has brought me both wall-fruit 
and pears, for which I am much obliged to you. Charles 
and I feasted upon them. I must now conclude in haste, 
with my best remembrances to Mr. Mallet, ^Ir. WTiishaw, 
and your olive-branches. 

Believe me, ever truly yours, 

L. AiKix. 



TO MR. AND MRS. MALLET. 157 



To Mr, and Mrs, Mallet. 

Hampstead: August 10, 1839. 

A Eowland for your Oliver, my dear friends ! You sent 
me a very agreeable account of your view of York Minster 
and Harrowgate, and I can now retaliate with my im- 
pressions of Windsor Castle. Last Tuesday, K. and I ac- 
companied my brother Arthur thither by railroad, and I am 
proud to say that I bore the journey very well, and was well 
pleased with the mode of conveyance for that short dis- 
tance ; for a hundred miles I think I should find it dull, 
and wish for the old high road, with its variety of vehicles, 
and the amusement of passing through towns and villages. 
How few ideas of a country would a foreigner gain by 
being whisked through it on a railroad, always on a low 
level, and often passing between high banks ! 

That castle is a glorious mass, extremely picturesque, both 
by its forms and its position. It requires a resolute sup- 
pression of one's feelings respecting architectural antiqui- 
ties to relish its modern restorations on a nearer view ; and 
I confess that the only part which gave^me much sentiment 
was the chapel, in which some relics of former ages are 
left still untouched. The two plain slabs in a retired side 
chapel, lying almost side by side, and bearing the simple 
names of Henry VI. and Edward IV., say much to the 
mind, and so do the banners and ancient scutcheons of 
the knights. I took a full survey of these objects, whilst my 
more vigorous companions were climbing the round tower, 
for its panoramic view. In the state-rooms are a few, though 
not very many, objects of interest, besides the old pictures, 
which we had not time thoroughly to examine. Some 
Gobelin tapestry struck me a good deal ; it is in excellent 
preservation, as well as beautifully executed, and the air 
of the figures most amusingly French. How impossible 



158 LETTEKS. 

it is to mistake any production of the age and country of 
Louis XIV. ! The same misapprehension everywhere of 
the grand for the great. But if such a style can ever be 
in place, it is in court-saloons and ball-rooms, as here. 
We much enjoyed a row down the river, ^vith the castle 
towering on one hand, Eton College ' crowning the watery 
glade ' on the other ; and it is only on the spot, by the 
way, that one feels the graphic propriety of that ex- 
pression. 

I quite agree with you, Mr. Mallet, as to the poorness 
of the towns on the north road. I doubt not their great 
inferiority to those of the continent ; but I am a little dis- 
appointed that you did not distinguish Newark, with the 
noble Trent winding through it, and its old ragged castle. 
Perhaps, indeed, I am biassed by historical associations. 
No town was the scene of so many interesting events during 
the war of Charles and the Parliament. It was held out 
long and stoutly for the king ; he was long there ; it was 
there, also, that the Scotch sold him. I apprehend that since I 
the centralisation produced by the increased facilities of ' 
travelling, our provincial towns have been more and more 
outstripped by London. Formerly, the neighbom-ing 
noblemen's and gentlemen's families were often content 
to occupy during the winter, a good house in York, 
Chester, \Yorcester, or Exeter — now, they all come to 
London. The commercial class, too, are more inclined to 
shun than to seek municipal honours and offices. No 
rich manufacturer now builds a handsome mansion in a 
town, in hopes of keeping his mayoralty in it ; he builds 
a villa, washes his hands of the corporation, and cares not 
for the embellishment of a place in which he holds only 
a factory or a counting-house. 

Mr. Whishaw and Mr. Smyth drank tea with me last 
week. Mr. Smyth brought one of Mr. Hallam's volumes, 
in order to read to me a most eloquent and excellent 



TO MR. AND MRS. MALLET. 159 

paragraph on the tragedy of ^ Lear,' which I highly enjoyed. 
In the midst of our chat, who should come in but Mr. 
Duckworth. The moment he saw how snug we looked, 
' I must go,' said he, ' and put up my horse,' which he did, 
making a most welcome accession to the party, and I in- 
dulged them all with bits of Dr. Channing's letters. Mr. 
Whishaw's carriage was ordered early, because Mr. Smyth 
was to set out for Cambridge soon in the morning, and 
he hurried our old friend away sooner than he was quite 
willing to go. I was glad to find he had enjoyed his 
evening. 

Mr. Duckworth came to tell me that he had at length 
procured for me the Tonson papers. I am now in the 
midst of them, and, although the letters of Addison are 
few and of no great consequence of themselves, they are 
very valuable to a biographer, as throwing light on the 
beginning of his literary career — little known before ; 
what is still better to me, they confirm a favourite opinion 
of mine on the formation of style, so I hail them as a 
treasure 

And pray, my dear Mrs. Mallet, how many tumblers 
have you reached in your crescendo progress ? You cer- 
tainly deserve a speedy and complete recovery, and I trust 
will find it. I hope, too, you will be able to take a good 
survey of the lions of Yorkshire. Mrs. Grreaves and the 
Misses Baillie are quite well. No Hampstead news that 
I know of — who am the last to hear anj^ 

Tonson says I must gossip no longer. 
Ever, my dear friends. 

Cordially and affectionately yours, 

L. AlKIN. 



160 LETTERS. 



To Mr, Mallet 



Hampstead : Sept. 1843. 

Indeed, my dear sir, I agree with jNIrs. IMallet that your 
grand spectacle of our gallant Queen on her own element, 
attended by her noble fleet, was an incident well worthy of 
being related. Nothing abated my pleasure in your 
description of it, except a little twinge of envy, which 
seized me involuntarily and unawares. Much would I 
have given for such an inspiring sight. Her reception by 
that fine old French gentleman was like a chapter out 
of ^Amadis de Gaul,' and perhaps ought to have stood 
alone for this year : yet, in their way, the burger festivals 
of Bruges and Grhent were also excellent, and carried the 
mind back to the days of the old counts of Flanders, 
England's faithful and valuable allies. The whole excur- 
sion was charming, especially for us who are old enough 
to recollect the bitter feelings of the long war which pre- 
ceded this long blessed peace. 

It is strange that people should so studiously run away 
from their own ripe peaches and nectarines, and leave it 
to their neighbours to tell them how good they are ! This 
very day, after dinner, I shall treat Charles with some of 
yours. This brilliant weather is delightful to him, and 
does him good. For me, the nights especially are rather 
too sultry, and I long for a few sea-breezes. I believe, 
however, I shall not leave home this season, unless some 
special temptation should arise. Hampstead is in a state 
* of solemn silence and of dread repose ; ' but my Sunday 
parties have been animated by a few forlorn males from 
London, forsaken of their 'womankind,' and glad to be 
noticed. I had a very delightful note from the Professor, 
lately, who does appear to be in a delightful state of health 
and spirits. Long may it continue! .... In fact, I 



TO MR. MALLET. l6l 

have plucked up my spirits pretty well. The solemn 
* Eclectic ' is very civil to me, and so have some other 
oracles been. At present I am in a state of beatitude. 
Having no book to write, and no society ephemerals to 
read, I converse all day long with such people as Shak- 
speare and Bacon. Also, I am reperusing with increased 
admiration Gruizot's ' Lectures on Civilisation in France ' 
— Europe indeed, he says, but he generally means France, 
and scarcely ever refers to England, either as confirmation 
or exception to his views. In his system we are indeed 
divisos orbe. But he is surely a remarkable writer ; clear, 
sagacious, original, and admirable for fairness and im- 
partiality. We have only Hallam to place beside him. 
Young people,, after Smyth, might read Guizot, but I 
doubt if any academical class could thoroughly enter into 
his observations, they are so perfectly mature ones. How 
many things are there that we never begin to understand 
till we are nearly past making any use of them ! A dismal 
thought, therefore I will put an end to my prose when I 
have begged you to remember me very kindly to Mrs. 
Mallet and your sons, and believe me, 

Ever very truly yours, 

L. AlKIN, 

To Mr, Mallet 

Albion Street : Nov. 4, 1845. 

Thank you, my dear friend, for your kind note. I am 
reluctantly obliged to admit the force of your excuses for 
not making your personal appearance in Albion Street at 
this season, and I therefore fear it may be some time 
before we meet. 

The inscription pleases me very much ; I confess I was 
not prepared for such very good taste in that quarter. 
The only word that any one could scruple is ' Truth ' — 



162 LETTERS. 

every sect claims it for its own champions, and refuses it, 
of course, to all others ; but no one certainly was more 
devoted to what he thought the cause of truth than 
Channing, and those who raise the monument believe 
that he attained it. 

I am sorry that Thiers should be a more popular writer 
in America than our friend ; but this was to be expected, 
from the anti-anglican spirit which they now indulge. 
I hear from Dr. Holland that Thiers is delightful in 
society. This doctor, by the way, is just returned from a 
tour of eight weeks, in which he crossed and recrossed the 
Atlantic, and travelled three thousand miles on the Western 
Continent. (Sydney Smith said, the doctor might well 
travel fast, he never encumbered himself with more 
luggage than five grains of calomel and a pair of black 
silk stockings.) He attests the perfect accuracy of Dickens's 
description of the dressing accommodations on board 
American steamers. 

Do you happen to know of such a person as a pastoral 
poet? If you do, I will give you a subject for him. A 
lady related the tale to me with much praise of the sim- 
plicity of the parties. A young gentleman danced one even- 
ing at Almack's with a young lady of seventeen, who was 
so very pretty that he * simply ' told her he should like to 
marry her. ' But,' said the simple nymph, ' have you got 
enough to maintain me ? ' ' Yes, if twenty-five thousand 
a-year is enough.' * Ask my papa.' Papa, it should 
appear, thought it was ; for thus ]\Ir. Alexander Hope of 
Deepdene did achieve a "vsife. * I think,' said Master 
Duckworth, ' the young lady knew a good deal for seven- 
teen.' One might say something similar of the state in its 
teens, for which, pretty innocent, Mr. Ticknor pleads so 
earnestly with the professor. It knows nothing as yet, 
poor dear, of dollars, or bonds, or annexations ! . . . I rather 
congratulate myself on not being in Church Row during 



TO MR. MALLET. 163 

the delightful excitement of the murder * and the inquest, 
which appear to have had so many charms for the million. 
One comfort is, that the murdered appears to have been 
anything but a loss to society. But I think the event 
will give me a kind of dislike to Belsize Lane, which I used 
to think the pleasantest as well as shortest way from us to 
you. 

Yours ever very truly, 

L. AlKIN. 

To Mr, Mallet 

"Wimbledon : July 4. 
My dear Friend — Your last note made me quite melan- 
choly, by your account of the very little enjoyment you 
are able to derive from your pretty garden. I cannot but 
hope that with the advance of summer your rheumatism 
will become less of an obstacle to your movements. Just 
now, indeed, we are all made prisoners by the rain, and I 
have had feeling admonitions that sitting out of doors is a 
piece of youthiness in which I ought not to take upon me 
to indulge ; but the sight and scent of flowers is still a 
gratification, in which you, I trust, share also. 

You ask me about the ^ Annual Keview.' It was pub- 
lished yearly, in a thick octavo, in double columns, and the 
entire publications of the year were noticed, each under 
its own class, with short prefaces summing up what had 
been done in each department. The work had a great 
sale in the colonies, and there was always a hurry to get 
it out for the spring fleet to India. 

I may venture to say that the editor's maxim of ' fair 

play and no favour ' was most honourably carried out. 

There were many and able contributors, each in his own 

j department. Mrs. Barbauld reluctantly took part of the 

* The murder of Delarue. 

m 2 



164 LETTERS. 

poetry and polite literature in one or two of the earliest 
volumes, and gave that critique on the ' Lay,' which the 
author said he had approved and admired the most. My 
father, who hated reviewing, could only be prevailed upon 
to do * Hayley's Cowper.' I had the heartfelt pleasure of 
singling out for praise small pieces of Montgomery's in 
the ' Poetical Eegister ; ' and from the ' Poems of a Minor,' 
gibbeted in the ' Edinburgh,' I predicted that Byron 
would prove a poet. 

But the chief writers in literature of a general kind 
were Southey and William Taylor. Some of the best 
writing of each is there. Southey did best in travels, 
where his knowledge was extensive, and his dogmatism 
had little scope. Taylor's great knowledge, his extreme 
acuteness, tending sometimes to paradox, his singularities 
in language — for which he could always render a reason 
— and his occasional eloquence, raise his articles above all 
the rest in interest and entertainment. Jeffrey justly 
observed, ' If Taylor's reviews were collected, we should 
all hide our diminished heads.' He anticipated in many 
points the greatest writers on political economy. If you 
see the last and preceding number of the * Grentleman's 
Magazine,' you will find an article on Southey's * Life ' in 
the first of them, and some pretty sharp comments of 
mine in the second, exposing the vileness of his conduct 
to Mrs. Barbauld. It is impossible now to doubt that all 
the scurrilities of the ' Quarterly ' respecting her were his. 
I am persuaded that he hated most literary women ; and ■ 
latterly, all dissenters. Eespecting the ' Annual Review,' I 
may add, that my brother found the oflSce of whipper-in 
to an ill-disciplined literary pack so intolerably harass- 
ing that he resigned it ; and under an incompetent suc- 
cessor the work ceased to answer, and after one or two 
years was dropped. . . . 

I dined with Lady Coltman the day before she left 



TO MR. MALLET. 165 

town ; and in my way down Piccadilly, just missed being 
a witness of the audacious assault upon the Queen. Little 
did I imagine what had drawn the crowd together. Surely 
they will not let off the ruffian on pretext of insanity ! 

I hope Mrs. Mallet would remember to tell you that I 
gave you the copy of Mrs. Barbauld's letter, having the 
original. Among her letters to Miss Edgeworth is one 
containing some excellent criticisms on Mr. E 's prac- 
tical education. Amongst other remarks, she takes notice 
that casual circumstances will often give a bent to the 
mind of a boy quite in opposition to that which his parent 
might have designed to impress upon it. In illustration, 
she mentions that a friend of hers was sure that her son 
received an indelible impression in favour of the law from 
seeing their neighbour, a barrister, return every evening 
carrying a great bag, which the child thought was filled 
with guineas. I know the person she alludes to ; he is 
now a rich, and ultra-sharp attorney. . . . 

I must really put an end to this long scribble. 

Ever truly yours, 

L. AlKIN. 

To Mr. Mallet ^ 

Wimbledon : Jan. 8. 

My dear Friend — Thanks to Macaulay, if it were only 
for rousing our dear Professor * to the effort of writing 
such a gratifying and excellent note as you have sent me. 
To be reminded of those times, and of my own labours 
upon them, is like returning to some previous state of 
existence — so completely am I now separated from all 
such studies and discussions. 

I think still with those who regard it rather as an article 
than a history; very clever, very dashing, with all its 

* Professor Smyth, of Cambridge. 



166 LETTERS. 

detail, but not very deep or very philosopliical. Thus he 
says, in his off-hand way, that the great struggle of 
Charles's time was the change from a feudal monarchy to 
a modern limited monarchy. This sentence has but very 
little truth in it ; the quarrel turned on no such matter. 
The long parliament in their bill of rights asked for no 
new privileges, only for better security to the old ones ; it 
attacked no feudal rights of the crown. The truth was 
condensed by Lord J. Eussell in one sentence of his Httle 
tract on the Constitution: the Tudors had tyrannised 
through the parliament ; the Stuarts sought to tyrannise 
without a parliament. Why did James II. fail in an en- 
terprise which had succeeded with Mary ? For this very 
reason : the parliament abetted her return to Rome ; for 
his its consent was never asked. 

He has failed to explain why James was not warranted | 
in his attacks on the establishment by his authority as 
head of the church. The statutes on religion passed in 
the beginning of Elizabeth's reign should have been | 
recited, by which that authority was restricted. On the 
dispensing power he is very unsatisfactory. I conceive, 
that the illegality of those monopolies which Elizabeth 
and her successor were co7)ipelled by the parliament to 
cancel, consisted in their 'non obstante' clause. It never 
could be laivful for the sovereign to dispense with laws. 
Certain I am, that it was not even among the irregular 
things which the Tudors were tolerated in doing by pro- 
clamation. 

I am much taken by Lord Melbourne's saying ; it well 
characterises these dashing reviewers ; and so does a certain 
coarseness of style, very striking in Macaulay when he 
deals with characters. He hlaclcgitards Jeffreys and James 
as if they were live authors. I am not a sufficient judge 
of his fairness, or unfairness, between whigs and tories ; but 
the character I like best, as a portrait, is Halifax, the 



TO MR. MALLET. 167 

head of the Trimmers. On the whole, I much admire the 
book, and think its politics sound and seasonable. In our 
horror of the revolutions of the continent, we must not 
forget all that we owe to our own. 

Most of this I had written some days ago ; when the 
severity of the cold brought on my asthma, and nearly 
disabled me. Now I am becoming accHmated, and even 
enjoyed a walk yesterday in the sunshine. 

Last evening I received the pretty wedding cards, and 
I rejoice sincerely with you all. I hope Mrs. Mallet en- 
joyed the day. You would enjoy it for her, snug in your 
hybernaculum. Neither you nor I shall be off to dig up 
gold in California ; multitudes will though ; and I suppose 
they will be fighting for the treasure by-and-bye. It is 
like nothing but a fairy tale at present — Manchester does 
not take it in that sense, however. Think of the wild 
Indians all so gay in printed calicoes and gaudy shawls ! 
I hope some clever fellow will put it all in a novel for us. 
What strange scenes ! . . . . 

Kind love to Mrs. Mallet and your two sons at home ; 

cordial congratulations to H when you write. 

Ever truly yours, 

L. AlKIN. 

To Mr, and Mrs, Mallett, 

Wimbledon : Sept. 12, 1850. 

Dear Friends — By this time I trust you are again quietly 
settled in your own house, and all your bustles well over, 

I am sure I need not tell you how great a mortification 
it was to me to find you quitting Hampstead just as I 
arrived there. I had a glimpse of you, however, and that 
was worth something. The change was of advantage to 
me; I have been a better walker ever since, and if it 
were not for this obstinate east wind, I should enjoy 



1 68 LETTERS. 

myself very much in this bright sunshine. My brother 
dined with me two Sundays in Hampstead, and we had great 
enjoyment in retracing our old paths, notwithstanding the 
recollections which met us at every turn of those who 
once trod them with us — now lost to us in this world for 
ever. At our age, such spectral appearances start up at 
every turn, and we learn to accept of them as a condition 
of our being — indeed we should feel life a blank without 
them. It is in the past chiefly that we live. 

It was a great pleasure to me to see the Misses Baillie 
on the whole so well. Agnes seems to me quite herself 
still ; her sister's memory certainly fails a good deal, but 
the heart is warm as ever, and there are still flashes of a 
bright mind. 

Here I converse with the dead almost entirely. The 
fifth volume of Southey has been occupying me. The 
effect of the work is on the whole melancholy, notwith- 
standing his perpetual assertions of the buoyancy of his 
disposition — his gaiety even, which no one could possibly 
divine from the tone of his writings. With very consider- 
able talents, and unwearying diligence, it was yet his 
destiny to miss almost every mark he aimed at. But a 
small proportion of his numerous works succeeded even 
moderately, and the world refused to honour his bold 
draughts upon it as a great historian, and a poet, ' if not 
first, in the very first line.' 

I can remember when his friends said, ' No doubt he is 
arrogant, but he will mend of that, he will find his level.' 
There was the mistake — his was an incurable case; 
neither the mellowing hand of time, nor the rude shocks 
of disappointment, could in the least degree moderate his 
self-opinion. Posterity was to do him justice — his fame 
was to be immortal. It was a kind of monomania, and 
was the true source of his bigotry, religious and political, 
and of that virulence of abuse and invective by which he 



TO MR. A^'D MRS. MALLET. 169 

disgusted his own party almost as much as he provoked 
the opposite. He could not conceive that any treatment 
could be too harsh, any terms of contempt and hatred too 
strong, for those who resisted such manifest truths as were 
taught in the writings of the infallible Eobert Southey. 
To differ from him was to reject a prophet. I do not 
think this publication will raise him in pubHc esteem, 

good man as he was in all his private relations 

Your gardener supplied me abundantly with fruit and 
vegetables while I remained at Hampstead, for which I 
thank your kind though tfulness. Adieu, my dear friends, 
let me hear speedy and good accounts of you both. 

Yours ever truly, 

L. AlKIN. 

To Mr, Mallet, 

Wimbledon : Feb. 16, 1851. 

Dear Friend — It begins to be very long since we had any 
communication, and I am anxious to hear how you and 
Mrs. M. bear the winter which has come upon us at 
last 

We have nothing here but causes for thankfulness — all 
well, and the young ones thriving and learning. The 
pet of the house — a fine boy of fifteen months — is not 
spoiled as yet, though such a consummation is assuredly 
to be looked for in due time; meanwhile he is a great 
amusement to me, and I foolishly think him something 
more than common. But why foolishly? What would 
life be worth, if we had none left of these kindly illusions ? 

Talking of illusions, I actually made the effort of going 
to view that gigantic fairy illusion, as it seems, the Crystal 
Palace. It is indeed a wonder, and one of which no de- 
scription, no representation, gives the slightest idea. 
The form, indeed, is quite simple, so are the materials 



170 LETTERS. j 

and all tlie details, the whole impression depends on the 
size, which is quite inconceivable. It is not a sublime 
work, nor is it awful, nor yet strikingly beautiful. You 
have no associations with it to render it impressive or 
affecting — but wonderful it is in a supreme degree. And , 
if you looked round you at the spectators, every face wore 
the same expression of gaping wonderment — ' young i 
astonishment ' — like so many boys and girls watching a j 
conjuror. I would not have missed the sight on any j 
account — at our age what a treat is a new sensation ! 
Whether the effect will be equally striking when it is 
filled I doubt. The space will be in some degree cut up. 

As if I were resolved to go as far as possible out of my 
calm routine, T have plunged with Major Edwards into 
his ' Punjab Adventures.' He is a little boastful, but tells | 
his tale none the worse for that ; and a very curious and | 
interesting tale it is, and makes me acquainted, as I never ♦ 
was before, with those Indian races, Hindu and Mahometan, 
whom our soldiers and politicals have to deal with. Cruel | 
and treacherous they are, like all barbarians and all sub- ) 
jects of despotic sway; but there is good ground for hope I 
that a just and firm government, such as that to which ' 
British India is now, I hope, subjected, will very much 
correct these vices of Sikhs and Aflfghans. It is at least a I 
fine experiment on a grand scale, and one in which I have j 
long taken a deep interest. In fact, I would rather turn I 
my thoughts anywhere than to the continent of Europe, 
where despotism triumphs as the sole antagonist able to 
put down anarchy. I often think of Home Tooke, and 
suspect that after a time even he will long to try purgatory 
again. In France I have lost all interest. Who can tell - 
what a Frenchman wants or wishes ? 

There is some hope that we may improve in point of 
society here. . . . New fnends it is too late for me to 
think of; all I want, are a few conversable acquaintances. 



TO MR. MALLET. 171 

By tlie way, is it not a feature of the age that this word 
acquaintances is nearly obsolete? All are friends now 
after once meeting. Everybody lives so much in a crowd, 
that it is quite too great a trouble to make distinctions. 
What will it be when all Europe pours in upon us ? 
Amongst other distinctions, I suspect that of meum and 
tuum will often be slipping out of memory. 

You will like to hear that I am quite well, and abso- 
lutely enjoying the bright frost. My brother is well also. 
. . . My dear friends of five-and-twenty years, adieu. 

Ever truly yours, 

L. AlKIN. 

To Mr. Mallett 

"Wimbledon: June 9, 1851. 

Dear Friend — In all your remarks on the world's fair I 
entirely concur, and I rejoice that you and Mrs. Mallet 
should have had a glimpse of it, though little more. I 
have made it only one visit, and that not a very long one, 
and the difficulties to me are so great, that I fear I shall 
scarcely accomplish another. 

My visit to London was so short, that to my great 
regret I could not accomplish a drive to Hampstead. All 
I did accomplish, besides the Grreat Exhibition, was to 
show my face at Mr. and Mrs. Yates's archaeological party 
at Highgate. A very pleasant garden lounge it was, for 
we had fine weather, and I met half the people I know. 
An intended archaeological lecture in Polish-English, by 
Count Pulski, was very judiciously cushioned. Poor 
children are always made to swallow 'instructive and 
amusing ' at one mouthful, like bread and cheese, but I 
am shocked to observe, that the longer we live, and the 
cunninger we grow, the less we believe in medicated 
pleasures. 



172 LETTERS. 

Mr. Y 's place is called Lauderdale House, and was 

built by the atrocious minister of Charles II. for Scotland. 
It is a low white building, of no outside show, but there 
is a gallery 90 feet long, and several other large rooms, 
and a charming old garden in terraces down the slope of 'f 
the hill, with fine evergreens, and especially the largest \ 
bays I ever saw, which were in full blossom. Mr. Y. has 
added a palm-house, being a great botanist, and having '■ 
devoted his chief attention to this class. He is a man of ^ 
immense acquisition in various lines, and the house is filled f 
with his books and multifarious collections, which I had 
not time to inspect. His wife is the best of all his acqui- 
sitions, with her intelligence and unaffected good humour* J 
I longed to be domesticated with them for a month. ^ 

As you say, it is in vain to invite attention at present 
to anything unconnected with the Crystal Palace, but 
there will come a time, I trust, when * arts and industry ' 
have had their day, and the claims of our dear friend * to 
monumental honours will be admitted. I am even told 
that the abbey would not be so difficult as I imagined. It 
was suggested that the Queen and Prince Albert, if applied 
to, would be likely to patronise the design. May these 
hopes be realised ! I have been re-perusing many of her 
tragedies with renewed admiration. The high so it^ shines 
through them all, and they are full of poetry ; fine touches 
of character, too, though the moral refinement is some- 
times over-wrought. Would she had omitted all her 
comedies from her volume, and all the prose tragedies ! 
.... I forget London and all its shows and splendours 
when I enter our pretty garden. We are now in a blaze 
of rhododendrons and azaleas, with China roses and other 
flowers coming on, and my rock, I assure you, is becoming 
a positive lion, ]\Irs. Marryatt has given a solemn sen- 
tence that it is the best arranged rock of her acquaintance 
* Mrs. Joanna Baillie. 



TO MR. MALLET. 173 

I only say that it is quite covered with plants, and very 
gay at present with flowers of all hues. 

In a garden, a small one especially, it is certainly some- 
thing very different from nature that we look for ; and I am 
satisfied that the perfect artificialness of these little rocks 
is one of their great charms. Another recommendation 
with me, is the number of rather rare plants which you thus 
collect immediately under your eye — the greatest of all is 
the quantity of fid-fad occupation which the care of it 
supplies. Alas ! I have no better employment for the 
hours which it wearies to spend in the equally idle occu- 
pation of reading without an object. An Arabian barren- 
ness in the book-mart. I am looking through the letters 
of Walpole to Mason, but they are by no means his best : 
a great deal of political croaking from both correspond- 
ents ; a scarcity of anecdote, and an abundance of profes- 
sion, which their twelve years' quarrel shows to have been 
very hollow. I am at the end of my paper. My dear 
friends adieu. 

L. AlKIN. 

To Mr, and Mrs, Mallet 

Wimbledon : June 26. 
How is it, my good friends, that we have not had a 
single word together since my pleasant glimpse of you at 
Hampstead ? Is it, alas ! with you as with me, that the 
days of these latter years glide on so little marked with 
new impressions, that they are gone before we are conscious 
they have arrived ? ' Unfelt, uncounted.' Yet if, as I 
suppose, Somerset House is now given up, this must make 
an epoch to you, and a man at entire leisure might make 
the effort of telling a friend how he likes it. I know for 
myself, that after I determined to write no more books, I 
felt lost for a while without a daily task — now I feel that 
it would be insupportably irksome to me to resume it. 



174 LETTERS. 

So much, however, of old habits remains, that it is a real 
gratification to me, or rather the satisfying of a want, to 
give a daily lesson of some kind to a little niece or two ; 
and as the eldest is now a creature with whom one may 
read some parts of Locke with the con\dction that it is i 
understood and relished, you may believe that the interest • 
of this occupation increases daily. On the whole, I feel 
more and more that it was good for me to take up my 
abode in a house full of children. They keep constantly 
awake those sensibilities without which elder life would 
be mere vegetation. 

True it is that these are times in wliich the history of 
Europe might seem enough to keep all our thoughts and 
feelings alive, even without domestic interests. With me, 
however, this is not the case. I seem to be looking out 
upon chaos ; and whether cold or hot, or moist or dry, 
gains a momentary advantage, is really a matter which I 
cannot bring myself to take to heart. My prevalent 
notion is, that the French have a new military despotism 
to pass through before long, during which they will again 
be the scourge of the earth, unless this dread visitation be 
averted by a prolonged state of anarchy and civil war 
among themselves, ending in a fresh restoration of the 
elder branch of the Bourbons. Of the destinies in store 
for G-ermany and Italy, who can venture to form even the 
slightest conjecture ! 

Pray tell me whether you know a French book published 
as long since as 1809, Barente's 'History of French 
Literature in the Eighteenth Centiu-y,' and what is your 
estimate of it. A friend has lent it to me, and I am 
reading it with great admiration, and esteem of its wise, 
virtuous, and impartial spirit, as well as of the acuteness 
and finesse, combined with what appears to me the con- 
stant soundness and judiciousness of the remarks, whether 
moral or critical. He observes, that any one who should 



TO MR. AND MRS. MALLET. 175 

undertake the history of vanity in France, would soon 
discover a great part of the causes which produced its 
revolution. I conceive that if this excellent author be still 
living, he may find in recent events more and more con- 
firmation of this pregnant remark. 

My dear brother regularly visits us on Sundays, and 
the sight of him in such excellent health and peaceful 
comfort as he continues to enjoy, is one of my chief 
blessings. . . . Pray let me hear of the dear professor, 
and when you write assure him of my kindest regards. 
I know not whether he is still in a state to be gratified by 
a note. I would write if I thought he was. Adieu, my 
dear friends ; remember me to your sons. 

Ever truly yours, 

L. AlKIN. 

To Jerome Murch, Esq., of Bath. 

Hampstead: Dee. 20, 1841. 

Dear Sir — You ask me for some recollections of Mr. 
William Taylor in the freshness and vigour of his powers, 
and the melancholy plea with which you urge your re- 
quest, that there are very few now left competent to speak 
on the subject, insures my compliance. I feel it a duty 
not to withhold the little it is in my power to contribute 
towards the posthumous reputation of a man of merit and 
of genius, to whom, while he lived, the reading public was 
so much a niggard of its applause. 

Of his youth I can only speak traditionally, but I know 
that high hopes were conceived of him by those who 
knew him in his boyhood, and especially by her whom I 
have heard him name with gratitude * the mother of his 
mind ' — Mrs. Barbauld. His talent for poetry was early 
discovered by her. It was deeply regretted by some of 
his friends that his father did not educate him for the law. 



176 LETTERS. I 

He possessed, indeed, that union of perseverance and^ 
method in study, with subtlety of discrimination, of inex- ! 
haustible fertility in the invention of arguments on all 
topics, with eminent skill and facility in the statement of 
them, which could scarcely have failed of appreciation at i 
the bar. At the same time, that strong stamp of indi- ' 
viduality which rendered him' so much an object of curi- 
osity and interest to those who enjoyed his society, must^ 
soon have lost its sharpness under the friction of London 
life and professional collision. 

During his meridian, which might be loosely reckoned [ 
to comprise about ten years of the last century and fifteen ' 
or twenty of the present, Norwich contained within its 
walls a lettered and accomplished circle, fully capable both c 
of appreciating and of being stimulated by his genius, and 
he was constantly attended by a band of admiring disciples. 
His conversation was inexpressibly attractive, by its rich- ^ 
ness, Variety, and originality. So copious were the 
materials which his wide range of general knowledge, and 
his stores of many-languaged literature, offered to the I 
choice of his busy constructive fancy, that not the most 
familiar associate could anticipate on any topic his ready 
information, his novel inference, his strange hypothesis, his f 
ingenious illustration, his ironical suggestion, or his playful 
banter. The peculiarity of his diction, always interspersed 1^ 
with words of his own coinage, added to the zest of his 
sayings by its admirable aptness and significance. 

With these rare endowments, he was no engrossing or } 
overbearing talker, but a true converser. He was without 
vanity, and his manners, deficient in ease, were yet free I 
from affectation. ' That unnaturalness,' said an excellent 
judge of men, after closely observing him, Ms natural to f 
him.' His imperturbable calmness of temper, his perfect ^ 
candour, and an urbanity which never deserted him, con- 
ciliated general esteem, and certainly were his protection * 



TO MR. MURCH. 177 

from much of acrimonious dispute and social persecution. 
But for this, attached as he was by philosophy to the 
broadest principles of civil and religious liberty, and by 
habit to the unbounded range of discussion indulged in a 
Grerman university, he could not with impunity have so 
constantly exerted that privilege of free utterance of 
opinion, which bigots, seizing for themselves, deny to 
others. Often, indeed, it was matter of great doubt how 
far he could be serious in the bold speculations which he 
would advance as admitted principles, and the startling 
paradoxes he uttered with the air of truisms. In any case, 
there was such an absence of all idea of offence in his 
demeanour, that it was scarcely possible to meet him with 
angry invective or rude contradiction. 

He had other qualities which conspired to the same 
effect. In hospitality, generosity, and warmth of friend- 
ship, in probity and honour — the moral part of the gentle- 
man — he had no superior; and the filial devotion with 
which he made himself eyes to an excellent mother de- 
prived of sight, claimed for him the love and reverence of 
every feeling heart. 

In reference to Mr. Taylor's mintage of words, it is right 
to observe that it was not arbitrary or capricious ; they were 
always learnedly and analogically formed ; a few of them 
have crept into use, and more might perhaps be adopted 
with advantage. Of his profound knowledge, indeed, of 
the English tongue, and fine tact in the employment of 
words, he has raised an enduring monument in his 
' Synonymy,' a work which cannot be too diligently perused 
by the student in the art of English composition. 

To what extent he was indebted for his literary stores, 
and for the cast of his thoughts and style, to Grerman 
models, it is not for one unacquainted with that language 
to determine; but whatever may have been his obliga- 
tions, they were assuredly not unrequited. When his 

N 



178 LETTERS. 

acquaintance with this literature began, there was prob- 
ably no English translation of any Grerman author which 
had not been made through the medium of the French, 
and he is very likely to have been the first Englishman 
of letters to read Groethe, Wieland, Lessing, and Biirger in 
the originals. He hastened to spread the fame of his new 
favourites ; and from this time, translations, or imitations, 
more or less close, from the German, formed the bulk of 
his writings in verse ; although he has left us specimens [ 
enow to prove that the fame of an original poet of great 
vigour of thought and vividness of style was completely 
within his powers of attainment. ] 

How far Mr. Taylor was instrumental in kindling that [ 
violent but transient passion for the lighter literature of 1] 
Grermany which raged among us about forty years ago, it l 
is difficult to determine. Kone of the dramas which then fc 
became so celebrated or notorious were introduced to the ^ 
English public by him; but some years earlier, he had I 
begun to enrich the pages of the ' Monthly Magazine ' ( 
with some of the most valuable materials afterwards in- j 
eluded in his survey of Grerman literature. He had like- p 
wise published in a separate volume, ' Nathan the Wise,' L 
and that exquisitely graceful and interesting drama, ' Iphi- 
genia in Tauris,' which he has rendered into blank verse 
of the most finished beauty. 

A remarkable anecdote belongs to his incomparable ver- 
sion of Biirger's * Lenora,' which I heard from the lips of Sir 
Walter Scott himself, as he was relating it to Mrs. Bar- 
bauld. After reminding her that, long before the ballad j- 
was printed, she had carried it with her to Edinburgh 
and read it to Mr. Dugald Stewart , * he,' said Scott, 
'repeated all he could remember of it to me, and this, 
madam, was what made me a poet. I had several times 
attempted the more regular kinds of poetry without suc- 
cess ; but here was something that I thought I could do.' 
A translation capable of lighting up such a flame cer- 



TO MR. MURCH. 179 

tainly deserves all the praise of an original ; indeed no 
one could guess it to have been any other, so racy and 
idiomatic is the old English in which he has clothed it. 

For very many years, Mr. Taylor was both a frequent 
magazine correspondent and a diligent reviewer. For 
this last office he possessed in large measure the leading 
qualifications of extensive knowledge and critical acumen, 
always sheathed by him in the courtesy of the gentleman, 
mingled with those striking peculiarities which never 
failed to betray his authorship to the discerning reader. 
His articles are thus admirably characterised by Sir James 
Mackintosh in one of his published letters, written from 
Bombay : — * I can still trace William Taylor by his Ar- 
menian dress, gliding through the crowd in Annual Ee- 
views. Monthly Magazines, Athenaeums, &c., rousing the 
stupid public by paradox, or correcting it by useful and 
seasonable truth. It is true that he does not speak the 
Armenian, or any other language but the Taylorian ; but 
I am so fond of his vigour and originality, that, for his sake, 
I have studied and learnt his language. As the Hebrew 
is studied for one book, so is the Taylorian by me for one 
author. ... I doubt whether he has many readers who so 
much understand, relish, and tolerate him.' 

It does not occur to me that I have anything further to 
write to you ; for though many more particulars of the life, 
writings, and opinions of my own friend, and my father's 
friend, together with not a few of his remarkable sayings, 
live freshly in my memory, they might prove neither in- 
teresting, nor even intelligent to a new generation and an 
altered world. 

No person has ever come within the sphere of my 
observation, of whom I should so emphatically say. 

We ne'er sliall look upon his like again. 

Believe me, dear Sir, 

Yours very sincerely, 

Lucy Aikin. 

N 2 



LETTERS 

TO 

THE EEV. DE. CHANGING. 



No. 1. 



Hampstead: July 9, 1826. 

I FEAB, Sir, I must have appeared negligent and ungrateful 
in not sooner returning you my thanks for a copy of your 
excellent remarks on the character and writings of Milton ; '. 
but since I received them, which is about a fortnicrht, this f 
is my first opportunity of writing. Accept my most cordial I 
acknowledgements of the justice and honour you have t 
done to that great and injured character— that true servant ^ 
of Grod, that sublime teacher of the noblest truths to 
man. 

From my earliest youth I have been an assiduous and 
reverential student of his poetical works, that inestimable 
storehouse of instruction and delight, that fount of inspi- i 
ration ; lately I have reperused them with a more direct f 
reference to the circumstances of the times, and the ( 
character and situation of the author, and I am thus ^ 
enabled to give my deliberate testimony to the soundness, ^ 
and at the same time the novelty and originality of your t 
observations. In a short fragment of observations on f 
Milton, which I found among Mrs. Barbauld's papers, was P 
an expression of surprise that his ardent attachment to t 
liberty so seldom breaks forth in his verse, but your re- ^^ 
mark that it was principally the freedom of the mind to 
which he paid homage, well explains this circumstance. 
He deeply felt that 'who loves that mast first be wise and 



LETTERS TO THE REY. DR. CHANNING. 181 

good,' and to make men so, he accounted the first and 
most important service to be rendered them. What you 
say of the futility of looking back to the Primitive Church 
for authority, is excellent, and so far as I know entirely 
new; the notion of a progressive Christianity is very 
strikingly expressed, I remember in that pamphlet of 
Mr. Wakefield's on public worship, which I think was 
considerably misconceived by my aunt, and therefore 
misrepresented in her answer. It is manifest that 
Christianity can only be permanent for the future, has 
only been so through past ages, by silently adapting itself 
to the manners and sentiments of different times and 
countries; even the Church of Eome is far from being 
now what it was in the tenth century. I was surprised 
on first looking into the puritanical writers, particularly 
Prynne, to find how much he relied on the authority of 
the fathers, and even of some of the early popes ; and I 
enquired how and when it was that those writers had lost 
their authority with modern English theologians, even 
those of high church principles; an intelligent friend 
answered me, ' ever since Middleton gave them an in- 
curable wound.' On this subject Milton did not advance 
beyond his age. You have certainly not given Johnson 
more reprehension than he richly deserved for his outrages 
against one so inestimably his superior. My dear father 
made many efforts to counteract the effects of his preju- 
dice and bigotry in this and many other instances ; he was 
once engaged in the oflBce of re-editing Johnson's Poets 
with corrections and additions, and I always regretted 
that the failure of a bookseller interrupted this design ; he 
published Milton, however, with some spirited remarks on 
his former editor. In this country where Tory and high 
church principles are still lamentably prevalent, it is im- 
possible to estimate the mischief, as I should call it, which 
Johnson has effected, by lending the sanction of his 



182 LETTERS 

authority to popular prejudices. I know no other f 
example of powers so vigorous, self-devoted to the ) 
drudgery of forging chains and riveting fetters on the 
human mind. 

The great questions on liberty and necessity, matter and 
spirit, have evidently much employed your thoughts, and 
I cannot but wish that they may employ your pen ; the 
first especially, is a theme of vital interest, and one on 
which there is the strangest contrariety between the results 
of our reasoning, and in some degree of our experience — 
for we witness the apparently irresistible sway of external 
motives in many instances — and a certain internal con- 
viction which ought perhaps to be of still higher authority 
with us. I recollect that when I had the pleasure of [ 
seeing you at Newington, we spoke of the neglect into ( 
which metaphysical science had fallen among us, and 
certainly very little appears to be written on these sub- 
jects ; nevertheless they must always, I conceive, occupy 
a portion of the meditations of every inquiring mind, and 
I believe it will always be in the power of an original and 
able writer on them to attract considerable attention. The 
general progress of light and knowledge, too, reflects in 
various ways upon these pursuits, and makes it right that 
the standard works should at least be from time to time 
reexamined ; it appears to me that Locke himself requires 
modernising in several parts of his subject. Your glimpses 
of the advancement of the human mind are wonderfully 
cheering and animating, and who shall presume even in 
thought to set limits to its high career in a land where 
you already possess that prime boon which the learned 
and enlightened Selden vainly sighed for, * freedom in 
everything ? ' Here it may still be the work of ages to 
liberate the mind from bondage, for that great engine of 
civil and intellectual tyranny, a state religion, stands, and is 
Likely to stand ; but with you liberty is its birthright. It 



TO THE REV. DR. CHINNING. 183 

ougM to be a cause of thanksgiving to every lover of man 
and his best interest to think that there is in the world such 
a temple of freedom erected — May Grod prosper it ! 
Believe me, Sir, with high esteem. 

Very sincerely yours, 

Lucy Aikin. 

No. 2. 

Hampstead : May 1, 1827. 
I have many acknowledgements to return you, Sir, for 
a letter so truly acceptable to me, in various respects as 
that with which you have favoured me. Since its date I 
have also received from you a dedication sermon, which I 
have read and reread with increasing admiration and 
satisfaction. Of all the products of my aunt Barbauld's 
fine genius, wliich you have commemorated in a manner 
most gratifying to my feelings, there is none which during 
my whole life I have prized so highly as her ' Hymns for 
Children,' by which, with the most delightful allurements 
of style, the infant mind is insensibly led to look up 
through all which it beholds, whether of animated or in- 
animate, physical or moral nature, to the infinitely wise 
and beneficent cause of all. To a spirit early and deeply 
imbued with this general religion particular systems have 
something of low and narrow, from which it recoils with 
a sense of disappointment or disgust, ready to ask, like 
Lucan's Cato at the Temple of Jupiter Ammon, whether 
the universal deity, 

Steriles ne elegit arenas, 
Ut caneret paucis, mersitque hoc pulvere verum ? 

But such spirits your views of Unitarianism are well calcu- 
lated to conciliate, by showing it in strong and lovely con- 
trast to those systems which you well describe as ' shut up 
in a few texts,' and insulated alike from all which nature 



184 LETTERS 

teaches of a God and from all the lights which the culti- 
vated intellect is now deriving from reason and philosophy. 

Your remarks on the influence of Trinitarianism in 
^shutting the mind against improving views from the i 
universe,' open up a long train of interesting reflections, 
which I should be glad to see you pursue much further. 
It has often grieved me to observe how extensively this 
popular system of theology operates to degrade and distort 
men's moral sentiments and their views of human life. 
Certainly the deity of that system is not good, he is jealous 
of that love of happiness which he has himself implanted 
in the human bosom instinctively, and hence endless 
contrarieties between the language of its followers and 
their feelings — between their system and their intimate 
convictions. Men are supposed to be called upon, not in 
time of persecution alone, but universally, to choose between 
this world and another, to renounce the enjoyments of the 
present life, and to count sorrows and privations as the 
only wholesome food of souls. But this is hard doctrine, 
and its most obvious effect is to prompt a very offensive s 
species of canting which prevails at present in this country i 
to such a degree as to afflict and perplex all who are t 
inclined to hope well of the progress of human improve- \ 
ment. To him who regards the Deity as truly one, and ji 
unchangeable through all ages, there is no such contrariety 
— this world, the present life, are parts of Grod's space » 
and Grod's time ; His goodness is here and will be every- 
where for ever; and he has not written one thing on 
man's heart, and another in a book of laws for his 
guidance. 

Pray go on to give us more of the products of your 
acute, enlightened, and pious mind, and your most elo- 
quent and masterly pen. Bear in mind that you are i 
writing for England as much as for America. The fifth i 
edition of your discourse on the ordination of Mr. Sparks, 



TO THE REV. DR. CHANNING. 185 

printed at Liverpool, a Liverpool edition of your ' Duties 
of Children ;' and a Bristol one of your ' Discourse on the 
Evidences,' all lie before me. Your remarks on Milton, 
and this last discourse, have also been reprinted, and so 
will everything be that you write ; but if you would give 
us a volume, it would draw more attention and produce 
more effect than many tracts, because it would be noticed 
in reviews, circulated in book societies, and displayed on 
library shelves. Oh ! that you would give us a system of 
morals according to your own views, this would be a 
treasure to the present and following generations. In 
your noble country, where all faiths stand on equal ground, 
you write both without the fears and without the exasper- 
ation of a sect struggling to erect itself beneath the frown 
of an imperious establishment, a circumstance which gives 
you a superiority here more felt than expressed. I find 
in it an additional reason for joining you in the wish that 
the intellectual intercourse of our two countries should be 
continually extended, and that the utmost cordiality of 
feeling should exist between the friends of light and 
knowledge in both. I rejoice to hear of all your advances, 
and inquire eagerly after all your literary novelties, and so 
do many of my friends, and now that our administration 
has happily ceased to be Tory, it will be less than it has 
been a fashion to undervalue your efforts. My New York 
correspondent is not Miss Sedgwick, but her very intel- 
ligent brother Mr. H. D. Sedgwick, but I imagine that 
writing to either is ^vriting to both. Nothing will give me 
more gratification than to hear from you as often as your 
important avocations will admit. The state of America is a 
peculiarly interesting subject to many of my friends, and 
one on which it is difficult here to gain authentic infor- 
mation ; we want to hear towards what form of religious 
sentiment your people most incline, and whether the 
absence of an establishment leaves in fact any considerable 



186 LETTERS 

number destitute of religious worship — in short, how this 
great experiment turns out. 

Believe me yours, with great esteem, 

Lucy Aikin. 

No. 3. 

Hampstead: May 28, 1828. 

Dear Sir — A few days since I had the pleasure of re- 
ceiving your valued and interesting letter by Mr. Sparks. 
I had long been your debtor for that which accompanied 
your admirable remarks on Napoleon, and I am now 
impatient to avail myself of the recovered power of 
writing, to assure you that I am not ungrateful. I say 
the recovered power, because I have been struggling for 
many months with a state of weak and precarious health, 
which by compelling me to remain in a recumbent pos- 
ture, made the act of writing exceedingly troublesome and 
fatiguing. Though still much of an invalid, I am now 
considerably better, and my medical brother gives me at 
length assurance that I am proceeding, though slowly, 
towards complete recovery. This I had so little expected, 
that I have found some difticulty in returning to the 
interests of a life which I was fully prepared to quit — its 
cares and duties, clogged with a long arrear of neglected 
business, seemed to summon me almost rudely back from 
a state of languor which was not without its charms. In 
such a state, I have often repeated the line, 'Eesigned to 
die, or resolute to live,' and thought the former much the 
easier part of the alternative; it must now be my en- 
deavour to brace my mind for the latter. I have a great 
task before me to fulfil, and I pray G-od I may so fulfil it 
as to prove my gratitude to him for life and all its bless- 
ings. 

You will not wonder after this to hear that King 



TO THE EEV. DR. CHANNING. 187 

Charles has been at a complete stand ; yet I am not with- 
out doubts that the future work may have been gaining 
by an interval in which I have found opportunity for some 
general reading in history, and much meditation. Every- 
thing imprints more and more deeply on my mind the 
importance of the great historic virtue which I thank you 
for exhorting me to — that of impartiality. Certainly, 
instead of doing a service to the great cause of liberty by 
veiling the errors of its champions, we do it in fact the 
greatest injury, especially where we have failures to relate ; 
for if the fault was not in the men, it seems a just con- 
clusion that it must have been in the cause. On the other 
hand, by representing its opponents as worse men than 
they really were, we lighten arbitrary power itself of the 
reproaches justly its due, to discharge them on the vices 
accidentally adhering to its supporters. But certain prin- 
ciples have a tendency to produce certain effects, good or 
bad, on the minds and manners of their advocates ; and the 
chief utility of introducing biographical details largely 
into works of history is, that these tendencies may be 
impressed and illustrated by examples ; that both the rule 
and the exceptions to it may be fully understood, and 
thence just inferences may be drawn regarding principles 
themselves — and how can these just inferences, so im- 
portant to virtue and happiness, be drawn from any but 
true premises ? 

You have done the world, I think, a great service, by 
your view of the character of Buonaparte, which appears to 
me a model of just and wise appreciation, and which has 
attracted with us much attention and applause. I lately 
recommended it to the perusal of an old lord, whose 
manly and rational mind seemed to me likely now to 
approve it, though in his youth he had visited your land in 
the capacity of aide-de-camp to Clinton ; clearly he enter- 
tained no prejudice against the nation of the writer. I 



188 LETTEES 

believe — I fear, that as long is there is man, so long there 
will be war upon the earth ; and in war, as in all human 
things, good is mingled with evil, and sometimes we seem 
to see that providence has effected great and beneficial 
changes by its means, which no other means within our 
knowledge could have produced; but this is no reason 
why a conqueror should not be shown as what he truly is 
— a scourge of the earth. Your view of the character of 
this surprising man delighted me the more, because I 
found in it a very remarkable correspondence with the 
sentiments which my dear father was accustomed to ex- 
press ; he, like you, regarded him as in most respects a 
man of vulgar mind — a mere soldier of fortune, and he 
expressed the same indignation against those who, calling 
themselves friends of freedom, yet ranked among his 
partisans. With respect of the style of your piece, I am 
almost afraid to express to you the extent of my admira- 
tion — but with what pleasure did I hear a literary friend, 
a few days since, decidedly pronouncing Dr. Channing the 
most eloquent living writer of the English language ! 

I am very much enlightened by what you say of religious 
sentiment amongst you. Certainly the sovereign will be 
everywhere flattered and worshipped ; and in these matters 
the sovereign people is not likely to be wiser than other 
sovereigns. My father used to say of the popular systems, 
that they hid high for mankind, and I believe mankind 
must become a good deal wiser before Unitarianism will 
be able to outbid them in the minds of the multitude ; 
but certainly there is a progi-ess in both countries ; here it 
has lately been marked by the abolition of our test laws, 
and you go on founding Unitarian churches. The cele- 
brated political economist Malthus, a clergyman, but a 
liberal — for he was brought up under my liberal grand- 
father at Warrington, and has always acted with our 
Whigs — slid into his pocket the other day my copy of 



TO THE KEV. DR. CHANNING. 189 

your dedication sermon, saying, *It is a system which 
every good mind must wish to be true, but I think there 
are considerable difficulties from some of the texts.' I 
have not yet had the opportunity of enquiring whether 
you have removed his difficulties. 

I thank you much for your introduction of Mr. Sparks. 
I have yet seen him only for half an hour, and that was 
chiefly occupied by my questions and his answers respect- 
ing his objects of pursuit here. He has been illtreated at 
our State-paper office, through the illiberality or exclusive 
caution of Mr. Peel, and was hopeless of being allowed to 
take copies of papers which were at first promised him ; 
but I think means may yet be found, and I have set a 
friend to work, but without the knowledge of Mr. Sparks. 
Next week I hope he will meet at my tea-table the 
professor of modern history from Cambridge, Mi*. Smyth, 
a very liberal and enlightened person, who will be happy, 
I know, in the opportunity of giving and receiving infor- 
mation ; and two other literary friends, who will probably 
be able to assist his objects both here and at Paris. 

I feel that I have written you an enormous letter, yet I 
think you will hear of me again before long. During my 
illness I have just been able to amuse myself with pre- 
paring a little lesson book for children, most of which I 
had by me in pieces, written for my brother's young ones. 
Learning from Mr. Sparks that you have a little son, I 
shall venture to send you a copy, and with it a book for 
young people, which we have lately printed from a MS. 
of my father's. 

Believe me, dear sir. 

Yours, with true esteem, 

L. AlKIN. 



190 LETTERS 



No. 4. 



Hampstead: June 12, 1828. 

Dear Sir- I have now the pleasure of requesting your 
acceptance of my father's little book and my own, which I 
hope may be not unwelcome to the younger members of 
your family. How deeply do I feel myself indebted to you 
for your introduction of Mr. Sparks. He is indeed a 
mine of information respecting everything which it is 
most interesting to learn of your great country ; and I am 
proud to tell you that he did us the favour to communicate 
his knowledge and his sentiments with great freedom. 
His very looks bespeak goodness, and the more I conversed 
with him the more I was struck with the candour of his 
mind, as well as the strength of his judgment. I had 
the pleasure of introducing him to several literary friends, 
and all speak of him in terms of esteem and admiration. 

He promises to visit us again on his return from the 
continent, and I hope by that time he will find all the 
obstacles surmounted which have been opposed to his 
consulting our state papers. It is plain that historians of 
the war of independence are much more likely to arise on 
your side of the water than on ours ; and those who are 
anxious that more than just blame should not be called 
on the measures of our government, can do nothing so 
effectual as to promote the throwing open of all our docu- 
ments to an American, inclined to relate the facts with 
candour, and an endeavour at least at impartiality. Mr. 
Sparks assured me that the effect of all that he had been 
permitted to inspect at the Home OflSce had been to soften 
his feelings towards the British Government ; and cer- 
tainly this modification of judgment is the natural result 
of hearing both sides. I think you would rejoice to hear 
of the abolition of our sacramental test. It is the more 



TO THE BEY. DE. CHANNING. 191 

' satisfactory because the measure was carried in direct 
! contradiction to the wishes of the king, by the sole force 
I of public opinion declaring itself through the House of 
j Commons with an energy which ministers found it vain to 
oppose. Alas ! that the Catholic question should not also 
have been gained ! All thinking people must dread the 
effects' of renewed disappointment on the minds of so for- 
midable a body as the Irish Catholics. In granting to 
them the civil rights of other subjects, I confess I see 
neither difficulty nor danger, neither probably do most of 
the opponents of the measure ; but they say, concede that, 
and they will next demand the establishment of their own 
hierarchy on the ruins of the Protestant Church of Ire- 
land, on the plea that the established church ought to be 
that of the majority — a plea not easy to be refuted. In 
your country you have at least no dilemma like this to 
apprehend. I think I have never answered a question in 
one of your letters respecting the credit of Lingard's his- 
tory. I have examined carefully the narrative of those 
reigns which I have studied, and I do not hesitate to affirm 
that with all its apparent candour, it abounds in artful 
misrepresentations ; but can or dare a Catholic priest be an 
honest historian of events involving the interests or the 
reputation of his church ? I greatly doubt it. 

Believe me, dear sir, yours with much esteem, 

Lucy Amm. 

JSTo. 5. 

Hampstead: Aug. 12, 1828. 

Dear Sir, — I hope you will have received before this 
reaches you my long delayed little book and a letter ac- 
companying it ; Mr. Sparks put me in the way of sending 
it through his London bookseller, addressed to his care, by 
which direction you may hear of it should it not have 



192 LETTERS 

reached you ; a poor return at best it is for the two admi- 
rable pieces with which you have last favoured me. Of 
the sermon I may truly say, that it was by far the noblest 
view of the Christian religion ever offered to my mind, 
and the most persuasive ; it derives a novelty and originality 
from its sublimity, its purity and its simplicity; it is 
worthy of the most philosophic minds, the most enlight- { 
ened ages, and I regard it as the best illustration of the I 
idea of a progressive Christianity thrown out, as I re- 
member, but not sufficiently unfolded, by that virtuous J 
and accomplished, though not always judicious man and ^ 
writer, Gilbert Wakefield. It is fitted to do incalculable 
good, and I am certain that in this country it will now J 
find ' audience fit,' and by no means ' few.' The friends i 
to whom I have communicated it are all ardent in their 
expressions of delight, and the forthcoming English edition 
is impatiently expected. Your further remarks on Napo- 
leon are worthy of the same mind and pen ; I subscribe 
to them with all my mind and heart, and regard them as j 
no less enlightening on political than your other piece on '' 
religious topics. This too has been greatly admired with 
us, and read by those for whom ethical writings in general 
have no attraction. I have sincerely to thank you for the 
acquaintance of Mr. and Mrs. Norton; their society 
afforded me great pleasure and I only regretted that their 
stay in London was not further prolonged. Mr. Norton 
was so kind as to send me his ' Remarks on true and false 
Religion,' which convinced me how well-founded was your 
commendation of him as a deep and powerful thinker ; 
his sensibility and amiable enthusiasm it was easy to dis- 
cover from his manners and conversation, nor could the ' 
intelligence and animation of Mrs. Norton fail of attracting 
regard and interest. You put me on a great topic when 
you ask my sentiments of our religious reformation. A 
much better answer to your question than I am able to 



TO THE EEV. DR. CHANNING. 193 

suggest you will find in Hallam's ' Constitutional History 
of England,' published last year, which I entreat you to 
read, as the most informing work on this and many other 
important passages of our national story which has yet 
appeared. The author is probably known to you already 
as the able historian of the Middle Ages, of the English 
part of which work his new one may be regarded in some 
measure as a continuation. This writer, it may interest 
you to know, was educated in the bosom of toryism and 
high churchism, being the son of a very courtly canon of 
Windsor, and brought up at Oxford. By the efforts of his 
own vigorous and independent mind he has liberalised his 
politics and come to a judgment of our Anglican church 
and churchmen which galls them sorely, as you may see by 
Southey's furious abuse of him in the ' Quarterly Review.* 
He knows the dignified clergy thoroughly, and out of 
that knowledge contemns them, as servile, beyond any 
other class of Englishmen. From him they cannot pardon 
it. Et tu Brute ! You will find that he ascribes the 
ready acquiescence of the nation in Henry's reform in 
great part to the wide though secret diffusion of the doc- 
trines of Wickliffe, respecting which you may see some 
curious facts in Turner's ' English History,' which I think 
confirm Hallam. But I confess I think that great weight 
must also be given to the consideration that the memory 
of the civil wars was still so recent and so bitter that 
Englishmen were then willing to yield to almost anything 
for a quiet life. It is also true, that the personal charac- 
ter of Henry, by all its qualities good and bad, was formed 
to assert a strong ascendency over the minds of his 
people, by whom he was at once more admired, esteemed 
! and dreaded than any other English king. It must fur- 
I ther be considered, that he innovated nothing in rites and 
i doctrines, he hated and persecuted the Protestants ; and 
so long as he did so, it is probable that the Catholics 





194 LETTEBS 

continued to flatter themselves that sooner or later he 
would return within the allegiance of the holy father. 
The ground of quarrel also was favourable to him; it 
was thought hard that he should be refused his divorce ; it 
was visible that the Pope only refused it for fear of ofifend- 
ing the Emperor, and the great body of English nobles 
had signed a threatening letter to Clement respecting it. 
Lastly, Henry was supported by parliament in all his 
measures, and I have quoted in my Elizabeth the argu- 
ment urged by the attorney-general to More, founded on 
the omnipotence of that body : * You allow that parlia- 
ment may make kings, why not a head of the Church ? ' 
Still there ought to have been more martyrs among the , 
clergy for their own credit ; but the Romish Church had j. 
been so long triumphant, that we cannot be surprised to 
find it unprovided of the virtues militant. It behaved 
better afterwards ; all Mary's bishops with one exception 
refused to crown her successor, and submitted patiently 
to deprivation. The Protestants had taught them to 
prefer conscience to interest. But I believe that under 
Elizabeth, all the laity would gradually have conformed 
to protestantism, but for that master-stroke of Rome, the 
institution of the order of Jesuits. They were a miUtia 
levied purposely to fight the battles of the Pope, and were 
certainly, in their way, a band of heroes. It is curious to L 
see the efforts to revive them to meet the present dangers 
of the Church in France and elsewhere. My poor King 
Charles scarcely goes on, so very much am I impeded by 
ill health ; but my mind still clings to the subject, and I 
live in hopes of being yet enabled to complete it. Have 
you seen the very able and accurate French work of 
Gruizot on the 'EngHsh Revolution,' in which he in- 
cludes the reign of Charles I. ? I think it is the best 
history of the reign we yet possess. I have detected no 
errors and no important omissions, except with respect 



TO THE REV. DR. CHANNING. 195 

to the religious sects, of which he evidently knows but 
little. 

Believe me, dear sir, 

With sincere esteem and regard. 

Very truly yours, 

L. AlKIN. 

No. 6. 

Hampstead: Dec. 26, 1828. 
Dear Sir — My paper bespeaks your patience for a long 
epistle ; but I have two kind letters to acknowledge, and 
I perceive that the more we write to each other, the more 
we may write ; for new topics of enquiry and discussion 
are constantly springing up between us, which is delight- 
ful. I have to talk to you of our old Puritans, of the 
present state of opinion and of morals amongst us, and of 
your own works ; all which requires a large sheet. Your 
remark that fanaticism injures the moral character more 
than is usually supposed, has my full concurrence ; and 
all I have learned of our old Puritans and their descend- 
ants confirms it. A\'ith fanatics, religion is rather a 
substitute for morality than a support to it ; and I have 
seldom studied the character of a thorough-paced enthusiast 
without finding reason to believe that it contained a dash 
of knavery. Our old Puritans made their religion more 
directly instrumental to the purposes of worldly ambition 
than almost any other fanatics ; the prediction that the 
saints should ^ inherit the earth,' was constantly in their 
mouths ; they declared that its accomplishment was close 
at hand, and they never hesitated to claim the character 
of saintship for themselves. I have been so fortunate as 
to procure a large collection of thanksgiving sermons 
preached before the Long Parliament, which will enable 
me to convict many of these holy men out of their own 

o 2 



196 LETTERS 

mouths. One example of the spirit they were of, I will 
give you. After a string of furious invectives and denun- 
ciations against the royalists and prelatists, the preacher 
turns round with a — ' but it will be said that Christians 
are commanded to forgive and love their enemies ; certainly 
their own enemies, but not the enemies of God, as those 
ungracious persons are ! ' As for their descendants, the 
Calvinistic dissenters, they had the misfortune of living in 
one of those middle states between direct persecution and 
perfect religious liberty, which sours the temper by con- 
tinual petty vexations, without affording scope for great 
efforts or great sacrifices — which drives men to find a 
perverse pleasure in hating and being hated, and to seek 
indemnification for the contempt of the world in a double 
portion of spiritual pride and self-importance. ' We can 
prove ourselves saints,' ' being Christ's little flock every- 
where spoken against,' is the plea put into the mouth of this 
set by Green, a poet, who was born and bred among them. 
I have as much presbyterian blood in my veins as any of 
your New Englanders, and from the elders of our family 
I have picked up volumes of traditionary lore concerning 
the old dissenters of Bedford, who built a meeting-house 
for John Bunyan, and their brethren of Northampton and 
Leicester — still strongholds of Calvinism. From the 
whole, I conclude that they were usually lordly husbands, 
harsh parents, merciless censors of their neighbours ; 
systematically hostile to all the amenities of life, but not 
less fond of money, or more scrupulous in the me^ns of 
acquiring it, than the worldlings whom they reprobated. 
Long before my time, however, my kindred the Jennings, 
the Belshams, my excellent grandfather Aikin, and his 
friend and tutor Doddridge, had begun to break forth out 
of the chains and darkness of Calvinism, and their manners 
softened with their system. My youth was spent among 
the disciples or fellow-labourers of Price or Priestley, tlie 



TO THE KEY. DE. CHANGING. 197 

descendants of Dr. John Taylor, the Arian, or in the 
society of that most amiable of men, Dr. Enfield. Amongst 
these there was no rigorism. Dancing, cards, the theatre, 
were all held lawful in moderation : in manners the free 
dissenters, as they were called, came much nearer the 
Church than to their own stricter brethren, yet in doctrine 
no sect departed so far from the Establishment. At the 
period of the French revolution, and especially after the 
Birmingham riots, this sect distinguished itself by the 
vehemence of its democratical spirit, and becoming in a 
manner a faction, as well as a sect, political as well as 
religious animosity became arrayed against it, and I now 
remember with disgust, not without compunction, the 
violent contempt and hatred in which, in common with 
almost all the young, and not a few of the more mature of 
that set, I conceived it meritorious to indulge towards the 
Church and the aristocrats. 

The doctrines called evangelical make all the noise 
now, both within the Church and without. Yet I fancy 
that their success is at its furthest, and I should not 
wonder to hear of a party professedly latitudinarian, and 
really unitarian, beginning to show itself within the Church. 
Oxford partakes very little in the evangelism of Cambridge. 
Of these evangelicals too, one encouraging symptom is to 
be observed — they have gradually and almost imperceptibly 
quitted Calvinism for Arminianism ; therefore they feel 
less confident of being amongst the elect, and take more 
pains to work out their own salvation, not only by religious 
observances, but by deeds of beneficence and mercy. 
With much of the Puritanical rigor, in such points as the 
observance of the Sabbath, and the avoidance of public 
amusements, they are certainly a better set — indefatigable 
superintendents of schools, munificent patrons of Bible 
societies and missions, and incessant visitants of the sick 
and poor. Of course there must be many self-intereste 



1 98 LETTERS 

hypocrites among them, and not a few sour and censorious 

fanatics ; and to a system so exchisive as theirs, some bigotry 

must adhere : but I think that many of them are so exem- 

plarily good, and so sincerely pious, and act from so profound 

a sense of duty, that they must at length win from God the 

grace to think more worthily of His intentions towards the 

human race than they seem to do at present. I think, 

however, that their moral influence on the whole, and 

particularly amongst the lower class, is in many points 

unfavourable. They make religion exceedingly repulsive 

to the young and the cheerful, by setting themselves 

against all the sports and diversions of the common 

people, and surfeiting them with preaching, praying, and 

tutoring ; they bewilder, and sometimes entirely overthrow, 

weak and timid minds by their mysterious and terrific 

doctrines, and they do much towards confounding moral 

right and wrong by the language which they hold on the 

efficacy of sudden conversions and death-bed repentance. 

The assurances of eternal bUss which they hold out to the 

most atrocious malefactors are often a just subject of 

scandal. On the whole their system has much of the 

debasing, and as it were vulgarising effect, which you 

justly ascribe to such views of religion — and is perhaps 

one of the great causes of that apparent want of moral 

progress which you remark amongst us. Other causes are 

cheap poison in the shape of gin ; over population, which 

makes it hard to thousands to gain a livelihood by honest 

labour, and the improvident habits produced by our poor 

laws, and by the excess, or in many cases the injudicious 

application, of public and private charity. Our long 

wars, and the crushing weight of taxation which they have 

drawn upon us, are perhaps the remote source of most of 

these great evils. 

Our state is a very strange one — unexampled activity 
in every kind of pursuit — excessive activity, I should be 



TO THE REV. DR. CHANNING. 199 

inclined to say — unexampled diffusion of knowledge, but 
bad institutions of many kinds, tending to crush the 
many, to exalt the few ; abuse and corruption in every 
department ; vast luxury and corresponding rapacity, and 
a great fund of stupid and illiberal prejudice, diffused 
through all classes. We are in the main a Tory people, 
and what you may well think strange, the greatest Whigs 
and reformers amongst us actually hail a Tory ministry 
like the present, because no other kind of ministry has 
ever strength or permanence to effect anything, being 
unwelcome both to the king and the people ; and at a time 
when so much light and knowledge prevails, even Tories 
are influenced by public opinion, and often indeed, by the 
necessity of the case, to favour soTne reforms (like Mr. Peel's 
of the criminal law) which in their hands become effective. 
If the Catholic claims be granted, it will be a concession 
which only a Tory minister could extort from our king, or 
carry against the clergy. The agitation of these claims, 
by the way, produces some of the strangest anomalies of 
our situation. Here are our highest churchmen abusing 
without mercy the Catholics, whom Horsley formerly with 
greater reason declared to be ' nearer and dearer ' to them 
than any Protestant sectaries ; and here are we liberals 
almost driven into a league, offensive and defensive, with 
old popery, whom we have been bred to scorn and hate 
from our cradle. And now to my last topic. Nothing 
can be more sincere than the admiration I have expressed 
of your works, and none have I more admired than your 
last. Your views of the relation in wliich the Deity stands 
to man, and of the light in which He is to be regarded by 
rational beings, seems to me developments of my own 
thoughts, and the spirit of the whole discourse elevates, 
consoles, and delights me. 

God bless you, my dear and valued friend. 

L. AlKIN. 



200 LETTERS 



No. 7. 



Hampstead: June 12, 1829. 

Dear Sir — Your friends Mr. and Mrs. Ware visited us 
last night, and I hasten to thank you most cordially for 
the acquaintance of these excellent people. If my letter, 
which is lost with the little books, had reached you safely, 
it would have told you how welcome were your other 
friends, the Nortons and Mr. Sparks ; but they have returned 
to you, and have brought, I trust, no ill report of their 
reception. I know not exactly why it is, but your people 
always feel to me more like kindred than strangers ; we 
are acquainted as soon as we meet. Simplicity of manners 
•with elevation of mind and a cultivated intellect, form a 
union admirable anywhere, but less rare, I apprehend, in 
your state of society than in ours ; amid the bustling crowd 
of luxurious London it is a refreshment to the spirit to 
meet with it. Continue by all means to send us these 
noble specimens — it must tend to break down prejudices 
and to strengthen the bands which ought to unite together 
the true friends of man in every clime. It is indeed time 
to throw aside the fetters of nationality already amongst 
us, the best men have the lead of it, and the blessed in- 
fluence of peace which now renders an Englishman or an 
American free of the whole civilized world, emancipates 
the mind with the person and teaches it to scorn all 
littleness. 

I have but a shabby account to give of Zwingle. I 
certainly verified nothing and do at present regard that 
biography as a very rhetorical prize essay, and worthy of 
little confidence. My translation was made in early days, 
long before I became a searcher into history, and, truth to 
say, I undertook the task merely that I might have the 
satisfaction of earning a journey to Scotland by my own 



TO THE REV. DR. CHANNIKG. 201 

labour, instead of going at my father's expense. Zwingle 
however was an excellent man, and I was pleased to find 
that the best of English reformers and martyrs, Latimer, 
Ridley, &c. were followers of his pure and simple doctrine. 
Many thanks for your Fenelon. I thought there was a little 
inconsistency between the agreement with some of his 
leading tenets,- which you begin with professing, and the 
very important disagreements which you go on to explain ; 
but your sketch of the Catholic bishop is beautiful, and 
calculated to do much good ; and, in a very different way, 
I regard your remarks on self-immolation as highly valu- 
able. I remember making- several reflections en the 
mischievous absurdity of that notion after reading a 
French selection from eminent Catholic divines for the 
use of young persons. The doctrine of original sin is the 
root of that and various other highly noxious errors in the 
popular systems of ethics ; and though the selfish system 
has never satisfied either my reason or my heart, I think 
we owe great obligation to Paley and others who have set 
it up against its opposite. The Calvinists, by the way, 
stated the opposition between God and what they called 
self, as strongly as the Catholics. I found in some con- 
temporary writers the cant term of self-seeking mentioned 
as a new coinage of the Scotch covenanters, and looking 
then into the matter, I was inclined to think that the word 
selfish was scarcely of earlier origin, at least in its present 
acceptation. What a dreadful idea that our Creator has 
planted within our bosoms a domestic foe, from whom we 
can never fly, and whose malice never sleeps a moment, 
an evil principle solely occupied in working our perdition ! 
When will the most enlightened nations of the world take 
courage to banish from the midst of them superstitions far 
more baneful than the wildest dreams of savage ignorance ? 
Did you ever read a life of Fenelon by Charles Butler, the 
Catholic ? It is a curious work, and I had some curious 



202 LETTERS 

conversation with him respecting it. He plainly regards 
Fenelon's submission to the condemnation of his work, 
which papists and courtiers united to call sublime, as 
something like a politic manoeuvre. The whole story is 
an example, equally melancholy, and instructive, of the 
sullying influence of temporal and spiritual despotism 
upon characters made for sincerity and magnanimity. 
But this further moral it perhaps did not suit the purposes 
of your tract to deduce from the history of one of the best 
men of his class. 

Believe me with the highest regard, 

Most sincerely yours, 

Lucy Aikin. 

No. 8. 

Hampstead: Oct. 8, 1829. 
Dear Sir — 1 too, either from temper or habit, am a great 
procrastinator, and therefore I sit down to reply to your 
most welcome letter immediately, whilst the impression is 
quite fresh : I shall not be ' gravelled for lack of matter.' 
Hallam, I was certain, would both interest and inform 
you, and I wish you could put your historic difficulties to 
the author himself, as I did some of mine a few months 
ago, at a party where we were glad to discuss instead of 
dining. Such a torrent of knowledge he poured upon 
me ! He talks faster than any other mortal who talks 
wisely and who has lost his teeth, and hard task it is to 
follow him. But as to some of your difficulties respecting 
our Tories, and no-popery high-churchmen, I almost think 
I can give you some solutions myself. Toryism and high 
churchism are so closely and naturally connected that it 
is scarcely possible, in general, to estimate the separate in- 
fluence of each ; and in all our troubled times from the 
long parliament to the revolution, it is plain that religious 



TO THE REY. DR. CHANNING. 203 

and political principles were bobh busy in the fray, but 
the shares belonging to each have been very differently 
stated by writers : thus, Fox maintains that James II. was 
deposed chiefly for his tyranny, and Hallam holds that it 
was chiefly for his popery, and I know not which is likely 
to be nearest the truth. However, it is certain that the 
smoke of Smithfield fires and the fume of Fawkes's gun- 
powder have to this day an unsavoury odour in the nostrils 
of the people. The clergy, as a portion of the people, 
partake of the same sense of things ; moreover, the penal 
laws were a formidable obstacle to apostasy from the State 
religion. Laud himself, though in ritual, and in some 
points of doctrine, he wished to return as near as possible 
to Eome, felt that he could not conform entirely ' till 
Eome were other than she is,' and said *No,' as you 
remember, to the cardinal's hat. His master also seems 
to have been well aware at least that it could never stand 
safe upon the head of an Archbishop of Canterbury ; more- 
over, he himself hated popery like his father, on account 
of its assuming power to depose kings, and he would not 
have resigned his supremacy. Now it has been a constant 
maxim of Eome to concede nothing to schismatics; all 
schemes of compromise between it and the English Church 
have constantly failed, and diiferences are sure to gain 
importance in the eyes of those who by experience have 
found them to be irreconcilable. Hence the determined 
alienation of some of our highest churchmen from a church 
which they would have met, perhaps, more than half way. 
James II. strove to establish one exclusive church on the 
ruins of another. In this extreme case the bishops must 
give up one of three things, honour and conscience, their 
mitres, or their favourite principle of passive obedience, 
and it is not wonderful if they judged the last the smallest 
sacrifice. In Dryden's ' Hind and Panther,' you may see, 
too, that Catholics, especially those who were converts or 



204 LETTERS 

conformists to the king's religion, used at this crisis 
language sufficiently provoking and contemptuous to the 
Anglicans. With what intolerable point and justice too, 
he tells them 

But, half to take on trust, and half to try, 
It is not faith, but bungling bigotry. 

After the revolution, and down to Greorge III. with the 
exception for high church Anne, things were in a different 
position. The court was by necessity Whig. The bishops, 
or those who desired to be so, were therefore, by like 
necessity, Whigs also, and the fight against popery and 
arbitrary power, which always went together, was carried 
on by low churchmen and latitudinarians with Stillingfleet 
and Tillotson at their head ; the country squires and 
country parsons meanwhile remaining in the enjoyment 
of their high churchism, toryism and Jacobitism. During 
the last reign, Jacobitism becoming extinct, high prin- 
ciples resumed their place at Court, and did their utmost 
to resist the spread of all freedom at home and abroad. 
Dissenters and democrats underwent much abuse and 
some persecution, and Horsley then spoke of the French 
emigrant priests as much * nearer and dearer ' than the 
sectaries at home. Since that, however, the scene has 
changed again. Popery in Ireland is the religion of the 
mob, it has acquired a deep taint of radicalism, and its 
claims being patronised by our liberals, were opposed by 
the Tories of both islands till all statesmen saw that con- 
cession was unavoidable. The clergy, as a body, had 
interests of their o^\ti at stake, and stood out longer. ' Give 
the Catholics this,' they cried, ' and you give them strength 
both in parliament and without. They will resist the 
payment of tithes, they will overthrow the Protestant 
church in Ireland, and then Heaven knows what they, with 
the dissenters to help them, may attempt against tithes 
and church in England.' They struggled hard, and cer- 



TO THE REV. DE. CHANNING. 205 

tainly scrupled no means to work upon the prejudices of 
the vulgar, high and low. But the spirit of the times, 
joined to the necessity of the case, proved too strong for 
the spirit of the Church ; it has sustained a signal defeat 
and humiliation, and I hope good will come of it. 

My health is still very indifferent, in particular I am 
much troubled with severe headaches, which so continually 
interrupt my studies, that I have the mortification to see 
my King Charles making very little and often no progress. 
With occupation it is comparatively easy to keep up the 
spirits under almost any circumstances, but compulsory 
idleness I sometimes find it a hard task to bear with 
cheerfulness. However, I do my best, and with time and 
patience I still hope that my health will be restored, and 
my work finished. One advantage this delay brings me, 
it gives time for friends to take means for procuring for 
me family papers and other valuable documents, which 
one chance or other is continually bringing forth to day- 
light. In consequence of a base attack by Disraeli on 
that patriot martyr. Sir John Eliot, his descendant Lord 
Eliot has rummaged out a correspondence between him 
and Hampden, and promises to put it into my hands. Pray 
procure, if you can, another interesting family relic lately 
published, Lady Fanshaw's Memoirs. She was a royalist, 
and I feel proud of the women on both sides when I place 
her account on the same shelf as Mrs. Hutchinson's. There 
is much less of literary skill on the part of Lady Fanshaw, 
but her artless tale is full of interest and amusement. 

Passing from old times to new times, I have two pieces 
of intelligence for you, that German metaphysics (in the 
train of which German theology may follow) have got into 
Cambridge, where youths are puzzling their brains with 
Kantianism ; and that it is whispered — monstrum horren- 
dum ! — that Unitarianism is infecting some of the most 
enlightened of the clergy of Oxford. What will the world 



206 LETTERS 

come to ? Some of these clergy, and those of Cambridge, 
also addict themselves to the modern science of geology 
and other branches of natural history — this connects them 
with the Greological, Linnean, and other similar societies 
in London ; at their meetings they come in contact with 
the men of enlightened and independent minds, and thus 
they rub off professional stiffness and prejudice, and learn 
to assert something of the birth -right freedom of the mind. 

I had a glimpse and no more of the Wares on their 
return from their northern tour. Mr. Ware was looking 
better in the face, and there was less of languor in his air, 
but there seems to be still great room for amendment in 
his state. He ought to recover with such a wife to niu-se 
him. They did well to hasten to a more genial climate ; 
ours has this season been unusually trying to all invalids. 
I am afraid that Canada keeps up in your country a 
somewhat bitter feeling against England which here is not 
reciprocated ; for when we want to hate our neighbours, 
the French are far more handy than you. 

You may wonder that I should talk of my inability to 
write a volume; but a letter may be written lounging, 
and requires no apparatus of folios and quartos. 
Pray believe me. 

Very cordially yours, 

LUCT AlKIN. 

No. 9. 

Hampstead: June 1, 1830. 

Dear Sir — Many thanks for your welcome letter, which 
I was well able to decipher : I was the more glad to re- 
ceive it as I wanted such an excuse for writing to you, 
having, as you will find, abundant topics. My first shall 
be one concerning yom'self. That article in the ' Edinburgh 
Eeview,' I am charged to convey to you the regrets and 
indignation of a large group of your unknown friends and 



TO THE REV. DR. CHANGING. ^07 

admirers, who are hurt at it much less from any fear that 
it should either disturb your mind or injure your literary 
reputation, than from an apprehension that your country 
should regard it as a mark of national enmity, the more 
startling as appearing in a journal usually the organ of 
liberal principles. It is, in fact, the ebullition of one 
malignant temper, and it is easy to show you the sources 
of his hostility. The writer is William Hazlitt, a vehe- 
ment admirer of Napoleon, of whom he has written a Life, 
in a very different spirit from your remarks. He has also 
written on the English poets with an acute sense of their 
blemishes, and a very blunt perception of their beauties, 
another sin of yours ; further he is at enmity with your # 
commender South ey; lastly he was brought up at the feet 
of Priestley and Belsham, and probably retains of their 
system materialism and necessity, and little more. The 
matter was discussed amongst us at a literary dinner, and 
there wanted not those well disposed to make you amende 
honorable ; but no one could suggest a fitting vehicle — 
if the attack had but come from the Quarterly, the Edin- 
burgh would have gladly received an appeal, but as it is, 
I believe it must be overlooked. I must tell you, how- 
ever, that Mr. Hallam was one of the most indignant, and 
that he charged me to convey to you his wish to be 
regarded amongst your warm admirers, and his pleasure 
at learning that you had given some approbation to his 
labours. You would scarcely understand the reviewer's 
accusation against you as a trimmer, but seemingly he 
supposes that those who rank with the Priestleyans in 
theology ought to maintain the same doctrines in meta- 
physics, though it would be hard to show any necessary 
or natural connection between them. But what an ob- 
stacle is it to the progress of truth, that a man must take 
or leave all the opinions of some party, or leader ; on 
pain of being accounted a time-server ! It is one of the 



208 LETTERS 

privileges of a mere spectator, like myself, to be free to 
accept or reject as conviction prompts, and accordingly I 
find myself often discarding old prepossessions, and strik- 
ing out to myself new lights. 

Now the time may have been that I did frown on meta- 
physics, and ' as at present advised,' I am a Lockist and 
Necessarian, and yet T am beginning to wish well to the 
progress of intellectual philosophy, and I will tell you 
why. This age and the men of it are ' of the earth, 
earthy,' and I wish to see some upward movement. 
There is a pseudo science called political economy which 
dries up the hearts and imaginations of most who meddle 
with it — there is Bentham's system called the Utilitarian, 
which has a similar effect, there is Paley's system of 
morals, long the text book at Cambridge and just intro- 
duced as such, I am told, in the Scotch universities, which 
is another grovelling thing ; and to all these, a lofty phi- 
losophy would act, I believe, as a counterpoise of great 
value. Metaphysical inquiries may, on many points, show 
only * how little can be known ; ' but when conducted in a 
proper spirit, I have seen them work much good on the 
mind and character : yet, as you say, they do not always 
make men the better reasoners on religion, or set them 
above vulgar cries or vulgar prejudices. Benson, now 
master of the Temple, one of the most distinguished 
preachers and theologians in London — a Cambridge man 
- -once favoured me witli a luminous and beautiful lecture 
or harangue on Kantism, jet that man has renounced ac- 
quaintance, after a very long and dear friendship, with 
venerable Mr. Turner of Newcastle, one of the best of 
human beings, on account of his Unitarianism, and has 
publicly preached that this faith was contrary to morals ! 
Yet my Oxford news is true ; not of any of their logical 
or metaphysical writers, that I know of, but of some of 
their geologists and other natural philosophers, who. 



TO THE REV. DR. CHANNING. 209 

turning the force of their minds to those branches of 
science in which they may speculate unshackled, whisper 
in corners to other men engaged in similar pursuits their 
contempt for the Articles they have signed. My brother 
Arthur hears such talk from Oxonian members of the 
Geological Society, when they attend its meetings. 

I have heard the two works you mention spoken of with 
high praise by a few good judges, but I have not yet seen 
them ; the author, I am told, is a Mr. Bailey, of Sheffield, 
but this is all I can learn. You cannot conceive how 
much the lettered aristocracy of London society disdains 
to know anything of provincial genius or merit, at least 
in any but the most popular branches of literature. 
Montgomery, a Sheffield poet, being also an Evangelical, 
is tolerably well known in London, and may, in some 
companies, be slightly mentioned without committing the 
speaker. But a Sheffield metaphysician ! bold were the 
London diner-out who would dare not to be ignorant of 
him. You once observed to me that everywhere the 
sovereign is worshipped ; with us, that sovereign is an idol 
called GrentiLity, and costly are the offerings laid upon the 
altar. Dare to make conversation in the most accom- 
plished society something of an exercise of the mind, and 
not a mere dissipation, and you instantly become that 
thing of horror, a Bore* 

No. 10. 

Hampstead: June 7, 1830. 

Dear Sir — By the kindness of Mr. Ware, I have it at 
length in my power to send copies of the two little books 
so long since destined for your daughter ; and though I 
have written to you at large so lately, I cannot resist the 
temptation of adding a letter. I hope it cannot be very 
* The rest of the letter is missing. 
P 



210 LETTERS 

troublesome to you to read what it is so agreeable to me \ 
to write. 

Your friend Mr. Groodhue spent an hour with me one 
morning, and I was much pleased with his mild andu 
amiable manners, and the information which he gave me & 
respecting many of your institutions and societies. I^ 
wished for more of his company, and invited him for the ] 
next evening, when I expected Mrs. Joanna Baillie, Pro 
fessor Smyth, and another valued friend, Mr. Whishaw, ? 
a gentleman who has written little, but whose literary 
opinions are heard in the most enlightened circles with a 
deference approaching that formerly paid to Dr. Johnson. 
Mr. Goodhue was unfortunately engaged, but he sent me 
Mr. Kichmond, and the result was, one of the most ani- 
mated and amusing conversaziones, chiefly between him 
and the two gentlemen I have named — for we ladies were 
well content to be listeners — at which it has ever been my 
good fortune to be present. 

A more fluent talker than Mr. Eichmond I think I 
never heard, and I doubted at first how he might suit my 
two old gentlemen — both of them great eulogists of good 
listeners — but he is very clever, and there was something 
so piquant in his remarks on what he had seen here, suchii 
a simplicity in his questions, and when he spoke of his 
own country, such abundant knowledge, so ably and 
clearly expressed, that they were content for once to take 
such a share of talk as they could get by hard struggling. 
I think the professor of modern history got matter for a 
new lecture on American law and politics ; and he and Mr.j 
Kichmond took pains to contrive another meeting. But 
to me the most curious part was Mr. Eichmond 's wonder 
at having got into such high company as two or three 
baronets, a Scotch countess, and some lord ; and his difiiculty 
to imagine, and ours to explain to him, how our difiference 
of ranks ivoj'ks in society. He evidently supposed a much 



TO THE REV. DR. CHANNING. 211 

wider separation of classes than actually takes place. I be- 
lieve the structure of society with us may best be expressed 
by what an eminent naturalist has said of organised nature 
— it is not a chain of being, it more resembles a net, 
each mesh holds to several others on different sides. Our 
complicated state of society, in recompense of great evils, 
has at least this advantage, that it brings the rich man or 
the noble into relation with a multitude of individuals, 
with whom he finds it necessary to his objects to associate 
on terms of social equality, notwithstanding great disparity 
of birth or fortune. Those very societies of which we 
agree in condemning the epidemic prevalence, are useful 
in our country by their levelling effect. In a bible society 
or a missionary meeting, the zealous labourers, and still 
more the effective speakers, find themselves enabled to 
give the law to wealth and title. Scientific and literary 
institutions concur to the same results, and so does the 
cultivation in the higher ranks of letters and of arts. There 
is no fact, no talent, no acquirement, either useful or 
ornamental, no celebrity of any kind, but what serves its 
possessor as a ticket of admission to the company of some 
of his superiors. I imagine that in no country there can 
be less of undiscovered or unrewarded merit than in ours. 
Do you begin to suspect the insidious aim of these re- 
marks ? Your * Means and Ends of a National Literature' 
lies before me, and I am pleading for some exception as 
respects England to the general truth of your observa- 
tion, that in Europe ' it is for his blood, his rank, or some 
artificial distinction, and not for the attributes of humanity, 
that man holds himself in respect.' Perhaps, however, 
my position, that men in this country value themselves, 
j and are valued by others, very much according to their 
■ talents, tastes, acquirements, and their power and will to 
I serve a sect or party, may not be irreconcilable with your 
position that they do not respect themselves sufficiently 

P 2 



212 LETTERS 

for the attributes — the commoQ attributes — of humanity. 
Here in the lower, that is the more numerous class, it is 
too near the truth that ' man's life is cheap as beast's.' 
Your estimate of our literature I think very just. I am 
not, however, without hope that in labouring as you say 
for ourselves, which the difficulties of our present situation 
render imperative upon us, some geheral truths may be 
elicited which may be capable of extended application, at 
least in the other old countries of Europe, which continue 
to look to us for examples of many kinds — to you they 
will be less available. 

The oldest minister of the Scotch Church, Mr. Somer- 
ville, author of a valuable history of the reign of Queen 
Anne, died very lately at above ninety, but possessed of 
all his faculties. The venerable man uttered his ' nunc - 
dimittis ' on having witnessed Catholic emancipation ; but 
one more triumph was in store for him in the perusal of 
your works — he said he rejoiced in them exceedingly; 
they formed an era in the progress of religion. This trait 
I have from his accomplished daughter-in-law, also a 
great admirer of yours. She is an eminent proficient in 
mathematical science, and now engaged in translating the 
works of La Place, and her countrywoman Joanna Baillie 
is no more modest, gentle, and full of all goodness. 
Rogers the poet having seen some of your pieces, told me 
he was going to the booksellers in search of all the rest. 
Merely as ' means of moral influence ' you may prize 
these testimonies. 

It was with great concern I heard from the Wares that 
vou had sustained a severe attack of illness, thousrh I 
learned at the same time of your recovery. Pray take 
care of yourself for many sakes besides your own, you 
have yet much to do for the world ; and pray take it into 
consideration whether you ought not to winter in a milder i 



TO THE REV. DR. CHANNING. 213 

climate — such as ours ; how very much we would make 
of you if we had you here I 

Believe me ever 
Yours with the truest regard, 

L. AlKIN. 

No. 11. 

Hampstead: Dec. 14, 1830. 
I had been quite impatient, my dear sir, to hear from 
you, and I am almost equally impatient to answer your 
letter, which had a long passage, and is but two days 
arrived. I have volumes to say to you ; but first of the 
last, for fear I should forget it. I was afraid W. Burns 
would prove a second Sheffield metaphysician, having 
never heard of him ; but at length my friend, the Eev. 
Greorge Kenrick, suppUes full and satisfactory information. 
Twenty years since, when a Griasgow student, he often saw 
Mr. Burns at Professor Woodrow's. He was a very plain 
man, who had received the Scotch share of education, and 
no more, and whose style in writing was much more 
refined than in conversation. He had been a carpenter, 
but then lived without profession on a small fortune, 
devoted to reading and speculation. At that time he 
stopped short of Unitarianism, but adhered to the liberal 
party in the Scotch Church, and shared the odium attached 
to it in those evil days. He displayed a powerful and 
original mind, and was of high moral worth. Mr. K. 
thinks him to be not far short of sixty, and knows him for 
the author of the pieces you mention. Several corrobo- 
rating circumstances persuade Mr. K, and myself that 
liberal principles are now rapidly advancing in Scotland. 
Mrs. Joanna Baillie says the reason there are so few Uni- 
tarians there out of the church is, that there are so many 
in it. Their ministers sign a confession at ordination. 



214 LETTERS 

but having no liturgy, they are afterwards free to avoid all 
utterance of doctrine, if they please, or to teach their own. 
What an age have we fallen upon! Since the French 
revolution we have had the Belgian, the Polish insurrec- 
tion, and here we are in an English revolution ! I can 
scarcely give you an idea of our state — we do not half 
understand it oui'selves, but I am sure you will be anxious 
to hear as much as I can tell you. The panic occasioned 
by the postponement of the royal visit to the city was at 
first indescribable ; everybody said ^ what must this danger 
be which frightens Wellington ? ' This soon subsided ; it 
was admitted by all but a few of the highest tories, that 
no case had been made out — that the Duke had either 
given in to a false alarm, or had wilfully raised one for 
political purposes. This and his foolish declaration 
against reform, turned him out. We have now a ministry 
pledged to reform and retrenchment — to non-interference 
with foreign States. It comprises so much virtue and 
talent, that if sufficiently strong and sufficiently lasting, it 
would seem likely to secure to us important blessings. 
But in the meantime we seem on the brink of that com- 
plication of all horrors, a servile war. You have heard, 
no doubt, of our burnings, machine breakings, and mobs 
attacking houses, stage-coaches, and passengers, for plun- 
der. This, you may think, is no more than we have 
suffered before from the proceedings of Luddites and other 
collections of discontented workmen. But here is the 
difference — those were risino-s of the manufacturers of 

o 

some one branch alone, confined to certain districts or 
towns, and comparatively easy to suppress. But this is a 
movement of the peasantry — the whole agricultural class 
almost throughout the country, and the means of quelling 
it are not obvious. The last thing in English history like 
it, was the Norfolk insurrection, under Kett, in the reign 
of Edward VI., occasioned by the general inclosure of 



TO THE REV. DR. CHANNING. 215 

commons. Happily, our mobs have not collected by 
thousands, nor have they yet found a leader. The tories, 
with their heads full of the French revolution, have spread 
the idea that the conflagrations were the work of political 
agitators of a rank much above the peasants, whom they 
moved. But this appears an ungrounded notion. All 
the persons yet apprehended as ringleaders, are loose and 
reckless characters from the dregs of the people; and 
herein, I conceive, lies the safety of the upper classes. 
Over-population is said, and I believe truly, to be the 
main cause of the distress which has produced these 
risings; but others have concurred, such as the laying 
small farms into large ones, rack-renting, the absenteeism 
of landlords, and various abuses in the administration of 
the poor laws. There is a strong feeling also amongst the 
people against tithes, and against clerical magistrates. In 
general, the gentlemen have acted in these matters with a 
mixture of courage and humanity which does them honour. 
Very able judges have been sent down to try the delin- 
quents in custody ; the wages have been raised in most 
places, and I trust that at the price of some pecuniary sacri- 
fices, and some correction of abuses, we may see tranquillity 
restored. In the meantime, both London and these 
villages swarm with beggars ; some of them so sturdy and 
importunate, that there is but a shade between them and 
banditti. The ministry are in a situation of extreme 
difficulty and awful responsibility. They are pledged to 
some measure of parliamentary reform, for which this is 
certainly a very awkward season. 

I am reading Jefferson's ' Correspondence ' with deep 
interest. I wept bitter tears at the recital of British 
cruelties during the war. I had no idea how horribly we 
treated you — pray forgive and forget ; Jefferson did 
neither, but I dare not blame him. He speaks of ' the 
half-reformation in religion and government,' with which 



216 LETTERS 

England has sat down contented, without thinking it ne- 
cessary to cure her remaining prejudices. 

Say not that France is outstripping us in philosophy, 
unless you have read the ' History of Moral Philosophy in 
Britain/ lately written by Sir James Mackintosh. It is 
a work of immense erudition, full of acute and original 
remark, and showing a prodigious comprehension of the 
subject; yet it is said to have been hastily written, and 
the style is not highly excellent. I am impatient for you 
to see it. Being written in a supplement to a new 
edition of the ' Encyclopaedia Britannica,' it could not be 
bought in a separate form ; the author only having a few 
copies for his friends, one of which was lent me. I tried 
to get possession of one for you but failed. He was 
happily called by Mr. Whishaw ' an artist of conversation,' 

Brougham is our new Lord Chancellor — the Edinburgh 
reviewer — the radical-whig — the apostle of universal edu- 
cation and popular literature, whom we are astonished and 
delighted to behold in that highest dignity of a subject ! 
This is the man, the only man, whose powers I contem- 
plate with ivonder. In society he has the artless gaiety 
of a good-humoured child. Never leading the conversa- 
tion, never canvassing for audience (in truth he has no 
need), he catches the ball as it flies with a careless and 
unrivalled skill. His little narratives are inimitable, the 
touch-and-go of his remarks leaves a trail of light behind 
it. On the tritest subjects he is new without paradox 
and without efifort, simply, as it seems, because nature has 
interdicted him from commonplace. With that tremendous 
power of sarcasm which he has so often put forth in public, 
he is the sweetest-tempered man in private Hfe, the 
kindliest in its relations, the most attracting to his friends 
— in short, as amiable as he is great. His first great 
speech in the house of peers on his plan for distributing 
cheap justice to the people, afforded a curious exhibition 



TO THE REV. DR. CHANNING. 217 

of the manners of that house. I have the account from 
Mr. Whishaw, who accompanied the Chancellor. ' None 
of the cheers, none of the applauses of the House of 
Commons — no interest in so great and useful a subject. 
On the impassive ice the lightnings played.' And when 
he had concluded, no one rising, no one thanking him — 
'they sat in their curule chairs mute and motionless 
(however wide of them in other respects) as the Koman 
senate in the presence of Brennus.' No matter, England 
hears him. It is the news of to-day that the Prussians are 
rising, and Austria dreading disturbances in Italy. We 
shall be free — all Europe will. I cast away alarms and 
apprehensions as unworthy things, and surrender myself 
to the spirit of the age. Eeligious changes in this country 
become probable. It cannot, I think, be questioned that 
the Evangelical clergy have become odious to the common 
people by their meddling spirit, their hostility to all 
amusements and the gloom with which they invest the 
offices of religion. To recover influence the clergy must 
relax a good deal, if they do not a season of puritanism 
may again be followed by an age of utter profligacy. A 
well-informed friend just returned from Paris tells me, 
what others confirm, that with respect to religion the 
French mind is a ' tabula rasa.* ' They do not write against 
Christianity,' I remarked to one who knew Paris : ' No, 
they think that settled ; they do not write against Jupiter.' 
The churches are quite deserted, even in the south of 
France. I am delighted at your amusing yourself with 
Walpole. All classes were very coarse then, they had not 
yet thrown off the pollution of the Court of Charles II. 
I^ady M. W. Montague's letters tell the same tale — the 
whig Horace Walpole was aristocracy personified. 

I hope you will again gratify me with a letter before it 
is very long — your letters give me much to think upon. 
« Ever most truly yours, 

L. AlKIN. 



218 LETTERS 

No. 12. 

Hampstead : May 1, 1831. 

Very happy was I, my dear friend, to hear from you 
again. There was no getting any tidings about you — I 
could not even learn for certain where you were, and I 
was anxious to learn how the change of climate had 
answered to you and Mrs. Channing in point of health. 
Boston is quite an easy distance to think of in comparison 
of that little out-of-the-world island which I never heard 
of before, and could scarcely hunt out upon the map. 
And Emily Taylor had not written me a word about you, 
for which I will scold her; but I will not be jealous of 
her, because I love her dearly — a purer or more amiable 
mind I do not know; she loves a joke, too, and we are 
very merry whenever we meet. 

I have not been travelling for health, but keeping the 
house for it, which is worse. It is nearly three months 
since I have seen London, and I have been almost entirely 
disabled from writing, but I am again recovering. Great 
public events have occurred since I wrote last; on the 
whole, I think our position improved. The peasant risings 
are completely quelled; the reform bill absorbs all 
political feeling. It is a noble measure, and one which, 
when carried, will deserve to be revered as a new magna 
charta. It will render parliament, indeed, the organ of the 
people, and put, I beHeve, an effectual check upon the 
corrupt and oppressive influence of the aristocracy. You 
express a natural apprehension that our aristocracy should 
not discern the signs of the times sufficiently to lead the 
people the way that they must and will go. Certainly 
many are even now blindly striving to resist what is 
inevitable ; but the terrible examples of France have not 
been lost on the privileged orders in general, and many 



TO THE RET. DR. CHANNING. 219 

individuals have shown themselves actuated by a sense of 
justice and of true patriotism, which is of the best augury 
for the country. But the conduct of the king is our 
grand piece of good fortune, and a most unexpected one. 
A patriot king ! Once in a millennium such a phoenix is 
seen on earth. Alfred was our last. A levity in the 
manners of his majesty had caused him to be suspected 
of an unsound head, but he has under this a plain good 
sense, and what is better still, a real love of seeing his 
people happy, which in this instance has led him admi- 
rably right. His appeal to the people on this great 
question has utterly disarmed radicalism. The mob are 
ever king- worshippers, in all monarchical countries, and 
ours may be led anywhere to the tune of ' our national 
anthem.' Hunt and O'Connell hide their diminished 
heads ; against a king and a sailor-king, too, they are less 
than nothing. On the higher classes also, his influence is 
very considerable, and I feel almost confident that the 
measure will be triumphantly carried in the new parlia- 
ment. I agree with you that the want of harmony between 
ancient institutions and modern light, is the general cause 
of commotion both in this country and throughout Europe, 
and that the only general remedy is to be sought in a 
comprehensive reform of institutions ; but the particular, 
or immediately exciting causes, are various ; and to these 
the attention of eye-witnesses is most directed, as being 
those over which events, or what are unphilosophically 
called accidents, have power. Thus, I should say the 
general progress of society must bring us parliamentary 
reform during this geceration ; but the accident of a George 
or a William on the throne, a good or bad harvest, a 
prosperous or depressed state of trade, whig or tory 
ministry, may make all the difference of our obtaining it 
safely and peaceably, or through revolution and civil war. 
But it is in the main the cause of the many against that 



220 LETTERS 

of the few. I have convinced myself of this, and am become 
in consequence an ardent reformer. I boast of this as a 
self-conquest. Women are natural aristocrats, depend 
upon it ; and many a reproach have I sustained from my 
father for what he called my ' Odi profanum vulgus.' The 
rude manners, trenchant tone, and barbarous slang of the 
ordinary radicals, as well as the selfish ends and gross 
knavery which many of them strive to conceal under 
professions of zeal for all the best interests of mankind, 
are so inexpressibly disgusting to me, that in some moods 
I have wished to be divided from them far as pole from 
pole. On the other hand, the captivating manners of the 
aristocracy, the splendour which surrounds them, the taste 
for heraldry and pedigree which I have picked up in the 
course of my studies, and the flattering attentions which 
my writings have sometimes procured me from them, are 
strong bribes on the side of ancient pri\ilege ; but, as I said 
before, I have fought and conquered ; and I confess that 
' the greatest good of the greatest number ' is what alone 
is entitled to consideration, however unpoetical the phrase 
and the pedantic sect of which it is the watchword. 

Of the integrity of the chancellor, all distrust should 
cease. He has resisted more temptations than any public 
man in the country. An intense love of glory he certainly 
has, but it is for glory of the true sort. He is magnani- 
mous and philanthropic; and these two last words I 
cannot write without being reminded to beg you to read 
the life of Dr. Currie by his son. I knew the man — he was 
my father's friend — and the impression of the benefit and 
delight I received at an early age from his society, and 
under his roof, will be one of the very last I can ever 
lose. I think him to have been one of the best and 
noblest of mankind, and the wisest I ever conversed with. 
And with these great qualities there was an elegance and 
tenderness of mind, a spirit of poetry, and a shade of 



TO THE EEV. DB. CHANNING. 221 

constitutional melancholy investing the whole, which 
rendered him interesting beyond expression. Many of 
his letters are given in this work, and they are the man 
himself. The memoir has the very rare merit from a 
filial hand, of being perfectly free from exaggeration — 
the simple truth. There are many matters in the book 
which will interest yon. Currie was a wide as well as a 
deep thinker — few subjects of human speculation escaped 
him. 

And now let me tell you how I have been attempting 
to fill up one of those languid pauses of existence in which 
one has little to do but to wait for the return of health 
and strength in patience, deceiving the long, and in my 
case lonely hours, as best one may. I have been reading 
metaphysics. And this was your doing: the mention 
which you make, I forget in which piece of yours, of the 
theory of Berkeley, excited my curiosity, and I have been 
reading him with great admiration of his ingenuity and 
his beautiful style, and wonder that so much is to be 
said for what seems at first view so chimerical. I have 
since been reading Priestley's ^ Disquisition on Matter and 
Spirit,' and his correspondence with Price. And what is 
the result? why, that I am perplexed and confounded 
— utterly unable to take a side or form an opinion on 
subjects, which seem to me, indeed, placed beyond the 
scope of human knowledge — yet pleased and proud that 
the human mind should dare to entertain such thoughts 
— to soar to such heights, and sound such depths. Oh ! 
the mind of man must be formed for progress, eternal 
progress, else why these thoughts beyond the measure of 
his frame ? If the strengthening of this conviction were 
the sole result of pursuits like these, they were well and 
amply recompensed, but I have found in them other uses. 
They give me a more intimate sense of the all-pervading 
presence and agency of the one cause. I did not before. 



222 LETTERS 

if I may so speak, feel how very near it is — how closely 
it encompasses us on all sides. Second causes extend no 
way at all ; they can account for nothing, effect nothing. 
I always saw that there was something amiss with Hume's 
famous argument against miracles, but I did not well 
know what, now I do ; and now I feel the full force of 
your sentence that it is ' essentially atheistical.' That 
imposing term, the laws of nature, may easily lead to 
great misconception. The correspondence of Price and 
Priestley is further interesting, as a very beautiful exld- 
bition of two characters of great but different endow- 
ments. Both have great acuteness, both great extent and 
variety of knowledge to bring, in illustration of their 
topic; but the caution of Price, fertile in objections, is 
remarkably contrasted with the precipitation of Priestley, 
with whom 'once to doubt,' was 'once to be resolved.' 
Priestley was the more original thinker, the greater genius, 
but he could not feel difficulties ; neither indeed on his 
own favourite topics could Price, whose political theories 
warped even his calculations. I have a vivid memory of 
Priestley, the friend of my father, the dearer and more 
intimate friend of my aunt, Mrs. Earbauld. In his man- 
ners he had all the calmness and simplicity of a true 
philosopher; he was cheerful, even playful, and I still see 
the benignant smile with which he greeted us little ones. 
It pleased me to find you referring to him v*^hen you 
mention Berkeley. I know you have disapproved him on 
some points, you differ on many ; but you are brothers in 
the assertion of intellectual freedom, and the earnest search 
after, and unhesitating avowal of truth ! ! the noble, 
the glorious beings whom it has been my privilege to see 
and know ! What would life be without the commerce of 
superior minds ? what earth without the ' salt of the earth ? ' 
And let us rely upon it that times like these will bring 
forth men equal to them. France is decidedly taking a 



TO THE REV. DR. CHANNING. 223 

higher moral station ; and those gallant Poles, they will 
redeem their country. Here, too, I see much to rejoice 
in. Grreat borough owners, the Duke of Norfolk at their 
head, coming forward with alacrity to make the sacrifice 
of them to their country. Lord Grrey, whose canvassing of 
Northumberland in former days was called Coriolanus 
acted to the life — the author of the great bill. Lord 
J. Eussell doing honour to his patriot line, and to the 
tuition of excellent Play fair, whom I once saw him, in an 
Edinburgh party, pulling along by the skirt of his coat, 
to be introduced to a lady of quality. (A little puny man 
is this Lord John, with a very small voice ; sound sense 
his leading characteristic, and his style of expression 
simple, energetic, and rigidly concise.) In middle life 
there seems to be a good deal of real patriotism. Even 
members of close corporations have sided with the public, 
and what is more, so have some of the clergy. It is 
observable that there is now scarcely a whisper raised of 
the church in danger — when its peril was less, the cry of 
wolf was ten times louder. The lawyers for the most part 
take the reforming side. I scan not their motives. Both 
universities patronise darkness — but I blush most for the 
poets. A good while ago I saw Wordsworth in anxious 
museful mood, talking rather to himself than the com- 
pany, as is his manner, against general education, and 
then bursting out, ' I don't see the use of all those prayers 
they make the children say after their fugleman. Either 
it will give them a profane aversion to the whole thing, 
or make them hypocrites,' in which I mutually agreed. 
Now I hear he says that if the bill passes he shall fly his 
country. But whither, alas ? Eevolution may pursue him 
to Spain or Kussia. And so ends my voluminous budget. 
Believe me ever, very truly yours, 

L. AlKIN. 



224 LETTEES 



No. 13. 



Hainpstead : June 28, 1831. 

It is SO agreeable a thing to me, my dear distant friend, to 
communicate to you my impressions of passing events, with 
the assurance, too, that I am doing what is acceptable to 
you, that I have felt impatient to amass materials for a 
second letter. But from my parlour sofa, to which I have 
been very much confined, I could only send you what my 
neighbours brought to me ; within the last two or three 
months alone I have been enabled to go a little into 
society myself, and I now offer you my gleanings. 

Parliamentary reform is secure— -the tories may give 
some trouble by their factious opposition, but that is all 
they can do. The people have shown themselves much 
more zealous and united in the cause, than public men on 
either side of the question were prepared to find them. 
The question therefore now is — what next ? According 
to your prediction, we seem destined to proceed in the 
career of reformation until all our institutions shall have 
undergone a transformation. The friends of the Church 
dread that its turn will come next, and there are many 
tokens of it. A stinging ' Letter to the Archbishop of 
York ' has appeared, and the demand for it has been such 
as the printer could not keep pace with. The author 
declaims somewhat idly, on the contrast between modern 
and primitive bishops — then inveighs with greater force 
against the alliance of Church and State, and its corrupt- 
ing effects on the clergy ; exposes their views broadly, and 
indignantly exclaims that a moral and religious people 
can no longer away with such unfaithful shepherds ; and 
in the end boldly announces the fall of the Irish esta- 
blishment within one year, and the EngHsh within ten 
years. 



' TO THE EEV. DE. CHANNING. 225 

Mr. Beverley, the author, whom I know a little, is a 
very elegant classic, a good writer, and a gentleman ; but 
wild and eccentric to the brink of insanity. After many 
vagaries, he has just turned Methodist preacher. His 
pamphlet contains nothing like a reasonable plan for the 
settlement of religious affairs, but it is deeply imbued 
with the spirit of the evangelical sect. It is professedly, 
at least, in love and reverence to religion that he would 
divorce the Church from the State, and place it on the 
common level of sects ; and the extraordinary popularity 
of his piece seems to show that the large and zealous 
party to which he belongs are beginning to perceive how . 
much the forms and the discipline of a church constructed 
on the model of the Eomish — that is, on the taste of the 
middle ages — are at variance with the spirit of the present 
day, and hostile to their plans of empire over the minds 
of the people at large. I conceive that enthusiasm will 
always strive to burst through the fetters of articles and 
liturgies. I hear just now that the unpopularity of tithes 
is the chief cause of the currency of this piece. Another 
new and startling feature begins to appear. Hitherto 
both the Methodists and the Church Evangelicals have 
been distinguished by their indifference to civil liberty, 
and their attachment to ' the powers that be ; ' lately they 
seem to have entered into coalition with the radicals — at 
least;, the lower class of Methodists, consisting chiefly of 
I journeymen mechanics, and other labourers in towns, are 
I engaged in the stril^es for wages which have been so 
I frequent and formidable, and which their masters regard 
as the worst sign of radicalism. 

The Marquis of Londonderry, a great coal owner in the 
j North, went lately and demanded a conference with the 
; leader of the Newcastle turn-outs. He was referred to a 
I person who proved to be a Methodist preacher, and who 
i absolutely insisted upon the Marquis joining him in prayer 

I ^ 

i 



226 LETTERS 

(an exercise to which his lordship is little addicted), before 
he would proceed to business. 

I own I am not quite pleased with the prospect of a 
second reign of the saints, for their rigor and intolerance 
go beyond the high church themselves ; but there would 
be hope, I, think, if the Establishment were overthrown, 
or considerably shaken, that a liberal party in religion 
might rise in some strength. I believe it is already pretty 
numerous, but shy of showing itself. 

In the intervals of politics we talk of the Christian 
Brahmin, Eam-Mohun-Roy. All accounts agree in repre- 
senting him as a person of extraordinary merit. With 
very great intelligence and ability, he unites a modesty and 
simplicity which win all hearts. He has a very great 
command of the language, and seems perfectly well versed 
in the political state of Europe, and an ardent well-wisher 
to the cause of freedom and improvement everywhere. 
To his faith he has been more tlian a martyr. On his 
conversion to Christianity his mother cursed him, and his 
wife (or wives) and children all forsook him. He had 
grievous oppressions to endure from the Church party on 
turning Unitarian. This was at Calcutta ; here it is de- 
termined to court him. Two bishops have noticed him, 
and the East India Company show him all civilities. But 
his heart is with his brethren in opinion, with whom chiefly 
he spends his time. I hear of him this remarkable saying, 
That the three countries in Europe which appear even less 
prepared than Asia for a liberal system of religion, are 
Spain, Portugal, and England. 

You will read, I think with interest, and in part 
with great satisfaction, Grodwin's new volume, entitled 
' Thoughts on Man.' Probably, it will prove the last fruit 
of his mind, for he is now rather nearer eighty than 
seventy, and I believe declining. With all his extrava- 
gances of opinion, some of which in the early part of his 



TO THE EEV. DB. CHANNING. 227 

career did considerable mischief and threatened more, I 
have always entertained a respect for some parts of his 
character, as well as a high admiration of his powers ; 
and felt sincere pity for the long misfortunes in which 
partly his own errors, but still more the proscription of 
society, have involved him. I believe he justly describes 
himself in his new work as ^ one who early said to truth, 
go on, whithersoever thou leadest I am prepared to 
follow.' And is not this of itself a noble character of a 
man? It was remarkable in him that the reasoning 
powers seemed to have been developed long before the 
sensitive part of his nature. Thus his system was origin- 
ally constructed with a total disregard of the passions, the 
affections, and almost the instincts of mankind. But it 
was beautiful to observe him, in his own experience of the 
tender est ties of life, gradually expanding his groundwork 
to give admission to private and partial affections, and at 
length doing, as it were, public penance for the slanders 
which he had uttered against them in his days of igno- 
rance. Those noble and rare virtues amongst the founders 
and champions of systems — candour and ingenuousness, 
have always attended him. And they have produced to 
him good fruit. They have enabled him, after discarding 
one error after another, to work out for himself principles 
which, in the midst of degrading embarrassments, and 
even of domestic dishonour, have preserved to himself 
respect, philanthropy, and cheering views of'the character 
and destination of man. This volume is a repository of 
thoughts on many subjects, often I think original, often 
just, as well as striking, and frequently expressed with 
great eloquence. He everywhere shows himself 'lenior 
jet melior.' Do not almost all men grow better as they 
grow older ? I was pleased to find poet Crabbe maintain- 
ling that they do, which from the tone of his writings I 
jdid not expect. Have you ever met with any writings of 

Q2 



228 LETTERS 

Paul Louis Courier ? If not, you will know all about him, 
from the very able notice of him and his works which 
appeared some time ago in the ' Edinburgh Eeview.' I 
have just been reading a selection of his political pam- 
phlets, and with extraordinary admiration. His style is like 
that of Pascal, but still more lively and striking. A sharp 
thorn he must have been in the sides of the restored 
Bourbons, with their priest and emigrant faction — and it 
was this, probably, which caused his assassination. I had 
no knowledge till I read his pieces, how the system of the 
restoration had worked — but the oppression was terrible, 
especially in the provinces remote from the control of the 
public opinion of Paris. The maires and prefets, them- 
selves slaves of the court, the ministers, or the Jesuits, 
were so many despots over the peasantry and middle 
class, and carried on a frightful persecution against the 
means and the principles of the revolution. I see here 
abundant explanation and vindication of the revolution 
of last July, and I judge the men who planned and 
achieved it to have been true benefactors to their country. 
Courier strongly asserts what you likewise hold, the vast 
improvement of the national character since 1789. Pos- 
sessed of personal liberty, and a share in the soil of his 
country, the peasant has became industrious almost to 
excess, frugal, and, generally speaking, moral — he has the ( 
virtues of a labourer in exchange for the vices of a laquais, 
or the abjectness of a serf. It is from intimate views of 
private life in various ages and countries that the moral 
of political history is alone to be derived — and without this 
what is the value of long tales of wars and conquests, and 
one king deposing and succeeding another, and republics 
changed into monarchies, and monarchies into republics ? 
This principle has been always in my view in writing my 
' King Charles,' and will impart, I think, its chief merit 
to my book ; that is, should health and vigour be lent 



TO THE REV. DE. CHANNING. 229 

me for its completion. I have hope of it now, but I have 
been sorely tried by repeated disappointments on this 
head, and sometimes I have reached the very verge of 
despondency, and I have wished for the termination of a 
suffering and useless existence — my spirit beat itself 
against the bars of its cage. Then again I have called to 
my aid all I* could summon of philosophy and religion, 
and I have soothed my soul by prayer. 

I should like to know what you take to be the origin of 
the almost universal belief amongst mankind of a future 
state — was there, think you, a revelation to our first pro- 
genitors, of which all nations preserved some tradition ? 
Or did it result from the reasonings of man upon the 
moral differences between individuals of the human race, 
not always accompanied here by corresponding rewards 
and punishments? Or was the wish for reunion with 
departed friends father to that belief? Or is it (with 
Locke's pardon) an innate idea, an instinct? I think 
there is something mysterious — something, if I may so 
express myself, sui generis, in so strong and general a 
persuasion contrary to all appearances, and unsupported 
by any real analogies. I should like to believe it a reve- 
lation, but there are difficulties. 

I must not conclude without telling you some news of 
yourself. A friend of mine, just returned from Greneva, 
met there M. Vincent, Protestant minister at Nismes, a 
liberal and worthy man, who deplored the ignorance and 
narrowness of his ilock, still buried in the gloom of 
Calvinism. He had set up a journal, in which by ming- 
ling theology with literary criticism and general topics, 
he was gently insinuating into them more enlightened 
notions. My friend asked if he knew your writings, and 
finding he did not, she gave him several of them. In the 
first number of his journal, after his return, appeared as 
the leading article a translation of your sermon on the 



230 LETTERS 

resemblance of man to his Maker. Thus the good seed id 
sown — you may water it if you think proper. I hear from 
further evidence, that in several parts of France a simple 
form of Protestant worship, with liberal doctrine, would 
be highly acceptable to the people. 

Have you heard of our absurd sect of Millenarians ? 
Some say the end of the world is to be in tlie year I860, 
others only give us to 1836, and one gentleman has actu- 
ally turned his property into an annuity for six years. 

Pray let me hear particularly of your health. 

Yours, with the truest esteem, 

L. AlKIN. 

No. 14. 

Hampstead: Sept. 6, 1831. 
Dear Sir — I cannot longer refrain from acknowledging 
your last welcome letter, although I suppose you must 
have received one of mine soon after you wrote. There is 
always topic enough, since the interests of all mankind are 
ours. Just now my feelings are more cosmopolite than 
usual ; I take a personal concern in a third quarter of the 
globe, since I have seen the excellent Ram-Mohun-Roy. 
I rejoice in the hope that you will see him some time, as 
he speaks of visiting your country, and to know you would 
be one of his first objects. He is indeed a glorious being, 
— a true sage, as it appears, with the genuine humility of 
the character and with more fervour, more sensibility, a 
more engaging tenderness of heart than any class of 
character can justly claim. He came to my house, at the 
suggestion of Dr. Boott, who accompanied him, partly for 
the purpose of meeting Mrs. Joanna Baillie, and discussing 
with her the Arian tenets of her book. He mentions the 
Sanscrit as the mother language of the Grreek, and said 
that the expressions of the New Testament most perplexing 



TO THE REV. DR. CHANNINa. 231 

to an European, were familiar to an Oriental acquainted 
with this language and its derivations, and that to such a 
person the texts which are thought to support the doctrine 
for the pre-existence, bear quite another sense. She was a 
little alarmed at the erudition of her antagonist, and slip- 
ped out at last by telling him that his interpretations were 
too subtle for an unlearned person like herself. We then 
got him upon subjects more interesting to me — Hindoo 
laws, especially those affecting women. He spoke of 
polygamy as a crime, said it was punishable by their law, 
except for certain causes, by a great fine ; but the Mus- 
sulmans did not enforce the fine, and their example had 
corrupted Hindoos ; they were cruel to women, the Hindoos 
were forbidden all cruelty. Speaking of the abolition of 
widow-burning by Lord W. Bentinck, he fervently ex- 
claimed, ^ May Grod load him with blessings ! ' His 
feeling for women in general, still more than the admira- 
tion he expressed of the mental accomplishments of 
EngHsh ladies, won our hearts. He mentioned his own 
mother, and in terms which convinced us of the falsehood 
of the shocking tale that she burned herself for his apos- 
tasy. It is his business here to ask two boons for his 
countrymen — trial by jury, and freedom for British cap- 
italists to colonise amongst them. Should he fail in 
obtaining these, he speaks of ending his days in America. 
The dominion we hold over India is perhaps the most 
striking circumstance of greatness belonging to our little 
island. Your acknowledgment of England for the first 
country in the world very much delighted me. Yes, with 
all its evils, all its errors, it is a land to be proud of. I 
have always felt with you on the calamitousness of any 
violent change amongst us. As long as I can remember, 
and through the times when French example had most 
influence, all the best friends of liberty and their country, 
at least, its wisest friends, have constantly held that our 



232 LETTERS 

evils were not nearly great enough to risk a revolution for \ 
their removal ; and now, when so many peaceable and 
gradual reforms are taking place, the point is so very clear 
that none can wish for troubled waters but those who 
would fish in them. You think we shall escape this danger 
through the moderation of the higher classes. We have 
a farther and perhaps a stronger security in the curious 
manner in which all our different ranks, classes, sects, and 
parties, are dove-tailed into each other, or, if you please, 
matted together, which precludes the possibility of such a 
clear separation of one from another, as took place between 
the privileged and the unprivileged orders in France. It 
is an inestimable advantage that we have nothing answer- 
ing to noblesse; that with us the younger sons of the 
highest peers sink back into the ranks, undistinguished 
except by the vague boast of blood or family, which now 
stands for little or nothing ; whilst on the other hand, the 
lowest birth is no obstacle to the attainment of the full 
honours and privileges of the peerage. Voltaire somewhere 
remarks, 'In England, if the king makes his banker a 
peer, everybody, even the highest noble, gives him his title. 
With us, though Bernard is a real marquis, more than 
hundreds who are so named, who would not laugh to think 
of calling him marquis ? ' Thus our aristocracy is in a 
perpetual state of flux, and no one can say in any struggle 
who would or would not join its standard. The tory 
party, again, is far from coinciding with any possible de- 
scription of the aristocracy ; it excludes the Dukes of Sussex, 
Norfolk, Bedford, &c., and includes the greater part of the 
London aldermen and most provincial corporations. Even 
the clergy are not all serviles, for some of them depend on 
whig patrons. Neither are all tories boroughmongers, 
nor all boroughmongers tories. The High Church indeed 
are nearly all Tories, and Unitarians almost unanimously 
reformers, but the Church Evangelicals, and all other sects 



j TO THE REV. DR. CHANNING. 233 

! of dissenters, are divided. Our debates are, I believe, ably 
i reported, but I wonder not that they disappoint you. The 
I house will not listen with patience to general principles, 
I they are supposed to be taken for granted, and the ability 
I of the debaters is often shown most in a kind of apropos 
I of time and person, in hints and allusions, skilful thrusts 
I and dexterous wards, which none but the initiated can 
j appreciate. Of late the anti-reformers talk merely to 
I consume time, and now and then to damage the ministers 
* in public opinion. Yes, we have many evils which lie 
quite out of the reach of parliamentary reform, and the 
extreme inequality of conditions is the one which must 
weigh the most heavily of all upon the humane and think- 
ing mind. Probably it is an inseparable concomitant of 
commerce, manufactures, and a high state of luxurious 
refinement. Bad institutions and some combinations of 
political circumstances, however, haveextremely aggravated 
the evil, and no doubt opposite influences may mitigate 
it, as I trust we may in time experience. I can trace much 
of the progress of pauperism to two particular sources, one 
of which has been but little noticed, and the other scarcely 
at all in public. The first was the anxiety of Mr. Pitt to 
keep the lower classes in good humour during the war 
against French principles, which led him to give to the 
system of legal relief its present pernicious extent, and 
to lay the foundation of the fatal practice of ekeing out 
wages by parish alms, which the landholders improvidently 
concurred in, from the selfish and short-sighted notion 
that wages once raised could not be lowered again, but 
that alms might be withheld when temporary causes of 
distress should cease. The other cause is connected with 
the spread and the converting spirit of the evangelicals. 
Ever since Hannah More published her ' Cselebs,' it has been 
held by a large party the indispensable duty of ladies — 
girls even, to spend much of their time in visiting the 



234 LETTERS 

dwellings of the poor, inquiring into and ministering to \ 
their spiritual and temporal wants. Apparently, great p 
good would result from these charitable oJ0&ces to all 
parties, but you well know our national propensity to run ^ 
everything to a fashion — a rage, and the result has been p 
a great and pernicious excess. A positive demand for 
misery was created by the incessant eagerness manifested 
to relieve it. In many places the poor, those amongst ^ 
them especially who have known how to put on a little ^ 
saintliness, have been actually pampered and rendered -, 
like the indoor menials of the wealthy, lazy luxurious ^ 
discontented lying and worthless. Men have been en- 
couraged in squandering their wages in drink and dissipa- 
tion, by the assurance that the good ladies would not suffer f. 
their families to want ; women have slackened their efforts 
to provide decent clothing for their children — improvidence [ 
has become characteristic of both. These evils, however, 
begin to be felt pretty widely, and I expect ' the fashion 
of benevolence ' is beginning to abate. You complain 
that our restlessness does not carry us to the West Indian 
Islands. Two things are against it, the length of voyage, jj 
and the shrinking abhorrence we all feel from the sight of i 
slavery, but that senator would deserve praise who should 
defy them both in the cause of humanity. I have known i; 
these isles resorted to by consumptive invalids, and in one !l 
case within my knowledge, with complete success. I 
sincerely congratulate you on the benefit which Mrs. 
Channing has derived from her residence in the tropics, 
and grieve that it has not done more for yourself. Would 
that you would both exchange your inclement skies for 
our milder ones, before another fearful winter sets in. You 
should pass the colder months in our Montpelier — Bon- 
church, in the Isle of Wight — where a friend of mine, given 
over in Lancashire, has been marvellously surmounting 
her disease ; the better seasons we would enjoy your society 



TO THE REV. DE. CHANNING. 235 

here. Pray think of it ; health is even more than country, 
and is not this, too, your country ? 

We have little or nothing doing in literature ; politics 
absorb us wholly. The state of the continent is an object 
of just anxiety. I dread beyond everything the demon of 
military glory, which in all ages has possessed the French 
nation ; and, combined with their treachery and love of 
intrigue, has always rendered them bad and dangerous 
neighbours. I do my best not to regard them as natural 
enemies, but it is difficult. They hate us, and with some 
cause too. I want to hear that your pen is again at work ; 
we cannot afford to be deprived of its labours. You may 
still do much more for us, much as you have done already. 
As for me, I proceed in my task very, very slowly, want 
of health and its concomitant want of energy, the cause. 
Just now, however, I am in spirits, I have medical per- 
mission to make a little quiet week's tour, under the 
watchful care of a kind brother, and we are going to view 
our English vintage, the Kentish hop-picking, also to see 
pretty Tunbridge and make a pilgrimage to Penshurst of 
the Sidneys, or perhaps to Hever Castle, the birthplace of 
Anne Boleyn. Do you not a little envy us the historic 
recollections of an old country ? I was present at the 
splendid spectacle of the opening of New London Bridge. 
It was covered half way over with a grand canopy, formed 
of the flags of all nations, under which dined His Majesty 
and about two thousand of his loving subjects. The river 
was thronged with gilded barges, and boats covered with 
streamers and crowded with gaily-dressed people; the 
shores were all alive with the multitude. In the midst of 
the gay show I looked down the stream upon the old 
deserted, half-demolished bridge, silent remembrancer of 
seven centuries. I thought of it fortified with a lofty gate 
at either end, and encumbered with a row of houses on 
each side. I beheld it the scene of tournaments : I saw its 



236 LETTERS 

barrier closed against the rebel Wyatt, and wished myself 
a poet for its sake. 

Pray believe me yours, with most sincere regard, 

L. AlKIN. [ 

No. 15. \ 

Hampstead: Oct. 23, 1831. 

My dear Friend — Your two welcome letters have reached | 
me, both on the same day; of their various contents and | 
of the Farrers I shall speak by-and-bye, but the urgent 
thing is to enter upon the discussion of Priestley to which ' 
you invite me. I have long wished to get you there. I 
have just been talking him over with my brother Arthur, 
who was his pupil at Hackney, and had both the opportu- 
nity of knowing, and the mind for appreciating him. He 
says that certainly in one sense Priestley was self-satisfied. 
He had emancipated himself from the yoke of Calvinism, 
which was little made for his sunny temper ; and with 
such immovable, such entire conviction, he had settled it ( 
with himself that all things must at all times be working | 
for the best, because ordained and guided by the wisest I 
and best of beings ; that neither any misfortunes of his '• 
own, nor any disappointments to those causes which he 
espoused, were able to make deep or lasting impressions 
on his spirits. He was an optimist both by disposition 
and system, but from Epicurean tranquillity no one could 
be further. He was the most active of men, he could not 
have lived inactive, and to the propagation of this, his 
great principle, there was nothing he was not ready to 
sacrifice. My aunt has said of him, with as much truth as 
brilliancy, that ' he followed truth as a man who hawks 
follows his sport — at full speed, straiglitforward, looking 
only upward, and regardless into what difl&culties the chase 
may lead him.' This sanguine spirit prompted him to 
adopt the maxim, that no effort is lost ; he firmly believed 



TO THE KEY. DR. CHANNING. 237 

that all discussion must end in the advancement of truth, 
and here he could never perceive any mischief or danger 
in the fullest exposure of any doctrine which he believed. 
He was constitutionally incapable of doubt ; what he held, 
he held implicitly for the time ; but Arthur says he was 
not tenacious upon anything which did not affect his great 
principle of optimism — that is, of necessity. It may be 
considered that his system of the origin of ideas was de- 
rived from Locke and enlarged upon by Hartley, who also 
maintained necessity, and both these were revered names 
to follow. His system of materialism was more original, 
and more obnoxious, but his own faith in a future state 
being fixed on gospel promises, was quite unshaken by it ; 
and he expected, I say not how wisely, to enhance the 
value of Christianity, and compel, as it were, the deist to 
accept of it, by proving that there was no hope of immor- 
tality without it. All these doctrines, too, were in a 
manner sanctified to him by the often ingenious, often 
powerful use which he made of them in his attacks upon 
what he regarded as the most mischievous corruptions of 
Christianity. If he had promulgated these opinions from 
vain glory, no doubt it would have destroyed his moral 
greatness ; but as by the concurring judgments, I believe 
of all who had the best means of knowing, his motives 
were purely reverence to Grod and good-will to men, I 
cannot agree that anything but imprudence ought to be 
imputed to him by those who may most distrust their truth 
and tendency. His private life was radiant with goodness. 
He was excellent in every relation, exemplary as a pastor, 
particularly for the unwearied pains he took with the 
young, for whom he composed catechisms and delivered 
lectures. His Birmingham flock has never lost the cha- 
racter of devout zeal which he impressed upon it. His 
disinterested love of truth manifested itself in his scien- 
tific pursuits. The moment he made a discovery he 



238 LETTERS 

threw it before the public ; not waiting to form a perfect 
system which would have redounded to his o^vn glory, but 
eager to set other minds on the track of investigation, and 
provided truth were discovered, careless by whom. In ^ 
charity and forgiveness of injuries he was a perfect f 
Christian. ^So kind was his temper,' said my father, P 
' that he would not have hurt his bitterest enemy.' Think, 
too, of his zeal for civil liberty, and the obloquy and dan- 
ger which he braved for it, and make allowances for the 
situation of a reformer rendered more positive by often 
dishonest opposition. No, he had a sanguineness of 
temper incompatible with true judgment, and perhaps 
with deep feelings, but I cannot deny him moral great- 
ness; he would certainly have laid down his life for his 
faith, and for mankind. 

The doctrine of necessity has, no doubt, its dangers for 
inactive and self-indulgent tempers ; and though I know 
not how to resist by reasoning the arguments which very 
long since rendered me an earnest advocate for it, I begin 
to feel against it. In affliction I have found that it rather 
rebuked murmuring than afforded positive comfort. 
I know not how any one contrives to hold it and the 
scriptures together; moral responsibility is surely impHed 
in their promises and threatenings ; but, in fact, some of 
the necessarian Christians dilute and explain them away 
till they come to very little. WTiat I can least afford to 
part with is the idea of being approved or disapproved by 
a heavenly as by an earthly parent or superior ; of living 
' as ever in a great taskmaster's eye.' It has sometimes 
overwhelmed my heart with a sense of desolation un- 
utterably oppressive, to think, that by no efforts, no 
sacrifices, no performance of arduous duties with cheerful 
patience, it would be possible, if necessity were true, to 
gain the moral approbation of the Deity, without which 
I could not think of God as of a father. Creator, I could 



TO THE REV. DE. CHANNINa. 239 

call Him, and benefactor, but not' father, that dearest and 
tenderest of names. Your views on these subjects are so 
much more congenial to my feelings, that they have, I 
believe, very nearly become my own without my being 
aware of it. I am very much pleased with your account 
of the origin of a belief in futurity ; it accords with my 
previous ideas. We cannot well believe in God without 
expecting that He will sometimes come, as it were, to an 
explanation with us on all the things which so perplex us 
here. In appealing to an inward light thus far I think 
we are justified — it is rather dangerous ground, however ; 
enthusiasm and superstition are very apt to take advantage 
of that inlet, as in the interesting case of Mrs. F. Of the 
Quakers, whom it was formerly my lot to know many 
rather intimately, I have always observed, that owing, I 
believe, to their want of professional instructors in religion 
and morals, either as preachers or writers, they are much 
more ignorant of first principles on these subjects than 
the members of other communities. Whenever they begin 
to enquire for themselves, their unpractised understandings 
soon get bewildered, and if they quit their own society, it 
is usually for Methodism, Moravianism, or some other 
system where reason has least to do. A vagueness of 
thought, with a turn for mystery, almost always adheres 
to them, and it is very well if, in the midst of so much 
confusion, they form or retain very clear notions of moral 
right or wrong. 

The Dr. King you enquire about Mrs. Joanna Baillie 
knows ; she says he is very upright and very benevolent, 
but not a man of sense. His plan, I believe, has been 
given up, though at first it seemed to work well. Miss 
Mitford I never saw, but I think her ^Village' a very 
pleasing picture, and quite true to nature. She lives in 
a cottage with an old father whom she dotes upon. I 
hear she is very happy in her seclusion, and her friends 



240 LETTERS I 

speak of her with much affection ; in London circles she! 
rarely appears. 1 

I was disappointed of the little Kentish journey II 
mentioned in my last by the sudden illness of my 
brother; but when he recovered I found myself better 
too; and ^King Charles' is proceeding, though not thej 
better for our political crisis, which so fills my mind that 
I fear its giving some tinge, or some vices to my repre- 
sentation of the events of a former period of revolution. 

No public event ever oppressed me like this rejection 
of the bill, with grief and fear. Delay, for it is but 
delayed, must evidently increase all its dangers. It gives 
opportunity for the intrigues of violent and designing 
men on both sides. The tories are frightened now at j 
what they have done. Many of them would never have r 
given that vote but with the expectation of overawing I 
the King and making ministers resign ; they looked upon r 
it as little more than a trial of strength between Grrey i 
and Wellington ; they now know how the people look upon 
it, and how staunch the King is. The bishops are re- 
garded as persons insane ; they can never more appear on il 
the scene. We feel ourselves standing on a volcano, e 
With all this I love my country far too well to despair of \ 
her. I believe that the moderate party is strong enough I: 
to hold in check the two extremes, provided it eocerts t 
itself strenuously and skilfully for that purpose. 

You have touched upon what must be the most grievous 
of all topics to an American who loves his country — • 
slavery. We who praise republics, hang our heads when : 
it is mentioned. There is nothing by which Americans 
are so apt to give an ill- impression of themselves here, as 
by unguarded expressions on this subject. The only time 
I saw Bishop Hobart, he said to me, in defence of creating 
new slave states, that ^ a man must be allowed to make 
the best of his property.' There was a general shudder. 



TO THE REV. DR. CHANNING. 241 

I turned away, and addressed him no more, and tlie 
hospitable master of the house never gave him a second 
invitation. Another American sometimes gave us un- 
pleasant feelings simply by speaking of planters as his 
friends or acquaintances ; we regard them as persons not 
to be mentioned without a necessity. I conceive that the 
greatest political difficulties and dangers which menace 
you are from this somxe : the crime will bring its own 
punishment. 

It delights me to hear that you are writing again. 
Never can you put pen to paper without doing much 
good, and giving great delight. In a general survey of 
the state of the world facts will be of use to you as the 
grounds of reasoning ; and I will take care to store up for 
you any I think useful. Mr. Whishaw is just returned 
from France, and I will keep my letter open till after 
to-morrow, in hopes of something worth writing. — No, he 
has nothing to tell me except that he found Paris so un- 
pleasant from tumults that he left it in three days. But 
I have been questioning another friend, who has passed 
there the last year and half, on the state of religion. He 
says that, generally speaking, there is no religion at Paris. 
The Eomish religion is considered obsolete, and very few 
but women attend the churches. The priests are from a 
low class, with a very small stipend from the state, which 
he believes their hearers never add to. He knows of no 
spread of Protestantism; some old congregations of re- 
formed there are with Grenevan ministers, who are by 
much the most eloquent preachers he ever heard. One 
congregation of English unitarians, chiefly supported by 
Americans. These you doubtless know of, also that they 
have engaged an additional minister to preach in French. 
I hear from others that at Dijon a Catholic congregation 
went over in a body to the reformed ; that similar con- 
versions have taken place at Lyons. The provinces are 

R 



242 LETTERS 

less irreligious tlian Paris. You have probably heard that 
the Grenevan unitarians have been at length provoked to 
enter into controversy with the calvinists, who were 
carrying all before them. 

I have been dining with two clergymen, who to my 
astonishment began a discussion upon the exclusion of 
bishops from the House of Lords, which they both thought 
impending. One said it would be a good thing, which ; 
the other did not quite deny, but thought this was not the i 
tir)ie to strip the Church of honours. One of these was a 
reformer, the other certainly a tory ; but being both, I 
believe, sincerely religious and honest men, they were 
equally ashamed of the conduct of the bishops, and 
sensible that temptation ought to be removed from them ^ 
by the prohibition of translations and other means. There j 
is extreme bitterness all over the country against the 
clergy. A gentleman who had been canvassing Liverpool 
for your friend Thorneley, was repeatedly told by metho- 
dists and calvinistic dissenters, 'We are willing to vote 
for a unitarian, because he will be reasonable about the 
Church.' A fearful sign for the establishment when foes 
leaofue ao-ainst her ! In the midst of this ferment the „ 
lower classes exhibit a growing depravity which gives true 
patriots many a heartache. None would wish to live in 
an age of transition such as we have fallen upon, none 
at least but the young and ardent, or those whose faith in 
the high destinies of man is firm as yours. I brace my 
mind as I can. In the storm there is sublimity, high 
thoughts are stirred, and even a woman may be called 
upon for the exercise of high virtues. 

Farewell, my dear and honoured friend, 

Lucy Aikin. 



TO THE REV. DR. CHANNING. 243 



"* No. 16. 

Hampstead: Dec. 8, 1831. 

I feel as if I were in some danger of becoming impor- 
tunate to you by the frequency of my letters ; but, to con- 
verse with my ' guide, philosopher, and friend,' has now 
become with me, not a mere indulgence, but a want, and 
I trust in your patience. It is advisedly that I have 
called you my guide. I daily discover more and more 
how much I have come under the influence of your mind, 
and what great things it has done, and I trust is still doing, 
for mine. Let me gratify the feelings of a thankful heart 
by entering into a few particulars on this subject. I was 
never duly sensible, till your writings made me so, of the 
transcendent beauty and sublimity of Christian morals ; 
nor did I submit my heart and temper to their chastening 
and meliorating influences. In particular, the spirit of 
unbounded benevolence which they breathe was, I own 
it, a stranger to my bosom ; far indeed was I from look- 
ing upon all men as my brethren. Many things prevented 
it. A life, for the most part, of domestic seclusion ; 
studious pursuits, and something of the pride and fastidi- 
ousness they are apt to bring; and more than all, the 
atmosphere of a sect and a party, which it was my fate to 
breathe from childhood, narrowed my affections within 
strait limits. Under the notion of a generous zeal for 
freedom, truth, and virtue, I cherished a set of prejudices 
and antipathies which placed beyond the pale of my 
charity not the few, but the many, the mass of my com- 
patriots. I shudder now to think how good a hater I was 
in the days of my youth. Time and reflection, a wider 
range of acquaintance, and a calmer state of the public 
mind, mitigated by degrees my bigotry ; but I really knew 

1 R 2 



244 LETTEES 

not what it was to open my heart to the human race until 
I had drunk deeply into the spirit of your writings. 

Neither was my intercourse with my Creator such as to 
satisfy fully the wants of the soul. I had doubts and 
scruples, as I have before intimated, respecting prayer, 
which weighed heavily on my spirit. In times of the 
most racking anxiety, the bitterest grief, I offered, I dared 
to offer, nothing but the folded arms of resignation — sub- 
mission rather. So often had I heard, and from the lips 
of some whom I greatly respected, the axiom, as it was 
represented, that no evil could exist in the creation of a 
perfectly benevolent being, if he were also omnipotent, that 
my rehance on Providence was dreadfully shaken by a 
vague notion of a nature of things by which deity itself 
was limited. How you have dispossessed me of this 
wretched idea I do not well know — but it is gone ; I feel, j 
I feel that He can and will bless me, even by means of 
what seem at present evil and suffering. You have shown 
me clearly a Father in heaven, and for nothing earthly | 
would I exchange the heavenly peace which this convic- ' 
tion brings. It is surely the highest reason to believe that 
our finite spirits can never think too well or hope too 
much of His infinity, provided only we fail not in our parts. 

From the time that I first became your reader, I had a 
kind of anticipation that you would work considerable 
effects upon me ; but it has been by slow degrees, and 
laborious processes, and hard struggles with deep-rooted 
prepossessions, that I have fitted my mind to give recep- 
tion to so many of your views; and, but for the deep 
interest in them which your letters assisted to maintain, 
my resolution would have failed me ere the task was 
thus far accomplished. You have wished to interest in 
religion minds by which it was apt to be coldly regarded. 
With respect to mine, you have all that you desire ; for 
the present I am little interested in any other subject; or 



TO THE REV. DR. CHANNING. 245 

at least, I view all others as connected with this, and sub- 
ordinate to it. May God reward you ! You have given 
rae a new being. 

All the principles that can support or elevate the soul 
are greatly needed with us now, to meet the tempests 
gathering thick and dark around us. Pestilence advances, 
revolution threatens. With respect to the first, I feel 
only the dread of surviving those I love. A medical brother 
pledged to go wherever called, is a great anxiety ; but I 
will not dwell on possible evils. The poor in some Euro- 
pean countries through which this scourge has passed, 
were possessed with the notion that it was purposely dif- 
fused by the higher classes to thin the numbers of the 
lower. I doubt not there was talk which showed at least 
profound indifference in the rich and great to this result, 
and unless people set a strong guard on their tongues, the 
same suspicions may arise here. It is felt that we have 
many spare hands. I have heard a good man say, that a 
decimation of London, if the lots fell well, would be no 
bad thing. But luckily there can be no security that the 
lots would so fall, if once the infection gained ground ; 
and therefore we are cleansing the dwellings of the poor, 
and wrapping their persons in flannel ; but is there not 
something frightful in this worthlessness of the lives of 
one class to another ? What wonder that kings have 
made no spare of the blood of their subjects? I perceive 
more and more clearly what you first pointed out to me — 
the darkening effects of the spirit of aristocracy on the 
mind, its hardening influence on the heart. Distinct 
classes can never feel for each other as members of one 
body ; and, in the want of this sympathy, all anti-social 
vices, oppression, arrogance, cruelty in the rich, envy, 
fraud, rapacity, and brutal insolence in the poor, take 
root and flourish. I am convinced that the deep dread 
with which the working classes begin here to inspire their 



246 LETTERS 

betters is extremely wholesome; even such disgraceful 
excesses as those of Bristol have their use as warnings. 
Yet it is curious, though sad, to see how men drive away- 
unwelcome thoughts, and hug again their old delu- 
sions. One day a threatened radical meeting in the 
suburbs puts all the magistrates and gentry on the alert ; 
the police are arrayed, special constables sworn in, the 
rabble dispersed, the popular orators disappointed of 
audience for that time ; and the next day you shall hear 
the aristocracy round their dinner-table confessing that 
some reform must take place, but assuring themselves and 
each other that a little will satisfy all the well disposed, 
and concluding that, 'if the people will not be satisfied 
with moderate reform (that is, something less than the 
bill) they must be bayonetted.' I give you the very words 
used to me last week by a mild, amiable, indolent young 
man of fortune, and one who thinks gTeat scorn to be 
called a tory. I begin to fear that if, I mean ivhen, a 
struggle comes, that dovetailing of the classes into one 
another, in which I once confided, will be apt to give way. 
Yet there are noble examples of rich men, and even lords, 
who feel for the multitude. The Catholic peers have almost 
all sided with the people — by virtue, I suppose, of their want 
of attachment to the Church. It would shock you to be 
initiated into the abominations springing out of Church 
patronage. ' What will you do with your nephew ? ' said 
a friend of mine to a great coal-owner. ' Oh, if he turns 
out clever we shall make him a collier : if otherwise, we 
must put him into the Church.' When there is a family- 
living, commonly the most stupid of the boys, very often 
the most profligate, is made to take orders. In other pro- 
fessions success depends in some degree on merit. For 
the sake of electioneering interests, there is really no man 
whom a patron will scruple to entrust with cure of souls 
— provided only a bishop can be induced to ordain him — 



TO THE REY. DR. CHANNING. 247 

and there is always some bishop of notorious facility. I 
think there must, ere long, be considerable concessions to 
public opinion, with respect to patronage as well as tithes ; 
and these being reformed, doctrine will next come in 
question, 1 imagine. The substitution of popular election 
for patronage, and the abolition of pluralities, would in- 
fallibly procure us a more diligent, more moral, more in- 
dependent clergy, and one better instructed in theology, 
and consequently more scrupulous of teaching what they 
could not themselves believe. After all, these are animat- 
ing times to live in ; they offer hopes well worth all the 
fears they bring. A friend just arrived from Italy brings 
me some curious particulars of the state of things. The Pope 
has nearly lost all temporal authority out of Eome. Bologna 
has refused, in the most respectful manner, either to 
admit his troops, or to pay him any tribute. What is 
strange, the Eoman censorship, though extremely jealous 
of religious heresies, takes no cognisance of political ones. 
You might almost publish there Paine's ' Eights of Man.' 
In Tuscany, on the contrary, you may print what you 
please on religion, but in politics you are much restricted. 
A tragedy on the subject of the Sicilian Vespers had been 
repeatedly performed at Florence with immense applause. 
The French ambassador applied to have it prohibited on 
account of the reflections it contained on the French 
nation. ' You need not stir,' said the Austrian ambassador 
to him ; * the letter is indeed directed to you, but its con- 
tents are for me.' The representation was not forbidden, 
but it was long before the author could obtain license to print 
it. At last he did, on coudition that it should not be in a 
separate form, but stuck in a thick octavo of his other 
works. He contrived to take off a few separate copies, 
however, and gave my friend one, which I have just read. 
It certainly breathes a strong spirit of resistance to foreign 
domination ; and also utters very intelligibly that earnest 



248 LETTERS 

desire for the union of all Italy under one Grovernment 
which now possesses her best patriots. Many of them, my 
informant says, would not object, on certain terms, to see a 
the whole country under the dominion of Austria, which | 
has the sense to govern Lombardy with a good deal of 
mildness and liberality. They hate the French. 

The more I see of Eammohun Roy, the more I admire 
and even venerate him. Dr. Wallich of Calcutta, himself 
an admirable person, tells me that he stands quite alone 
amongst his countrymen, with neither equal nor second in 
talent, in integrity, and in enlargement of mind. He has 
provoked the bitterest enmity of the Hindoo priests by his 
attacks upon their gainful idolatries : but Dr. W. says that, 
should he return safe and well, supported by the distin- 
guished favour of the company, and successful in his 
patriotic objects, a shock would be given to the whole 
Hindoo system, which would go near to overthrow it. 
He gave us this trait of the good rajah. In conversation 
at the house of a Scotch gentleman at Calcutta, the ques- 
tion happened to arise, if two persons were drowning of 
whom you could save only one, and one were your country- 
man, would you not save him in preference ? * Certainly 
I should,' said the Scotchman. The rajah reprobated the 
idea of making a choice between the lives of any two 
fellow-creatures, at such a moment — he would save the 
nearest. ' No,' he added, after a pause ; ' there is a case 
in which I should make a choice. If one were a woman, 
I should rescue her.' And this from a man brought up 
amidst widow-burning and the exposure of female infants ! 
I have seen a good deal of the Farrars ; Mrs. F. and I are 
sworn friends, and I have made her tell me a vast deal 
about you and yours ; I can now fancy your happy fire- 
side. She says your boy and girl are perfect specimens in 
their kind. I shall be anxious to hear how the winter 
agrees with you and Mrs. Channing. With us the weather 



TO THE KEY. DE. CHANNING. 249 

is now almost oppressively warm, to the alarm of those 
who are dreading cholera. Nobody knows yet what our 
ministers are going to do about reform ; but they have 
declared they will not fail again. 

Ever yours, with the truest esteem, ' 

i L. AlKIN. 

I 

I No. 17. 

i 

I Hampstead: Feb. 22, 1832. 

' My dear Friend, — I have many, many thanks to return 

' you for those two excellent letters I have had from you 
since I last wrote. Nothing so much interests and de- 
lights me as the spirit in which you write of us and our 
concerns. Call yourself ' a foreigner,' if you must^ — it is a 
cold name, and one which we never give to Americans ; 

j but yours is a filial heart to old England still, and beats 

I true to her in all her trials and adversities. 

If you have received two letters which I have written to 
you since the date of your last, you will have seen that I 
am still far from despairing of my country. I see dangers, 
indeed, many and of opposite kinds, and many more there 
must be which are invisible to me ; I see the interests of 
various parties, sects, and classes in society roused into 
fierce opposition ; I see all, the high as well as the low, 
exposed to peril, suffering under real evils and privations, 
and too generally disposed, by a short-sighted selfishness, 
to advance unreasonable claims, and to shift as much as 
possible of the burden from themselves to others ; I see 
prejudice, ignorance, obstinacy at work, and in all classes 
too, to perpetuate bad feelings, urge on unprofitable courses, 
and resist wise and salutary reforms ; I see, and with 
deep sorrow, much depravity in the lower classes, much 
too in the highest, and in the middle ones a sordid, 
grovelling selfishness, less scandalous, but scarcely less 



250 LETTERS 

pernicious. But I see, on the other hand, much true ^ 
patriotism, and in high places too ; much philanthropy, fl 
much enlightenment, active zeal, and in some bosoms ^ 
fortitude and devotedness, equal to any trials we can an- |^ 
ticipate. There is also amongst all who have anything [ 
to lose a calculating coolness, a deliberate appreciation of f- 
present good, which is likely to range them almost uni- f- 
versally on the side of peace and order. The long discus- \. 
sion of reform has certainly had its advantages. You may f 
observe that the highest tories are now brought to admit ^ 
that some there ought to be and must be. I firmly believe, ' 
that with more or less of modification the bill will now ' 
be carried ; and with a popular House of Commons, what- 
ever partial changes of ministers shall occur, and several 
are talked of, it is certain that many other salutary ^ 
measures, now in preparation, will be brought in, and - 
carried too. 

The political unions seem to me to have lost ground ' 
since the affair of Bristol, and I do not in the least appre- j 
hend that they will be enabled to dictate to ministers or ' 
to Parliament, or materially to disturb the public peace. 
We have certainly in London no class of people capable 
of such deeds as the barricades of Paris. Our middling - 
orders are men of peace, never drafted off by conscriptions ; ' 
and as for our mob, they are profligate indeed, but seldom | 
atrocious. I suspect you have been horror-struck, like ' 
some persons here, by the statements and descriptions of 
Gribbon Wakefield, but it is not on the word of an atrocious 
malefactor, seeking to rise again into something like 
credit, and also to sell a book, that frightful stories ought ' 
to be implicitly believed. I think, in short, that the ' 
general apprehension of a revolution will save us from 
the reality, and that better, not worse, times are approach- 
ing. 

But what must I say to the heavy charge you bring 



TO THE REV. DR CHANNING. 251 

' against all the rich, the powerful, the improved, for the 
I mass of vice, ignorance, and misery which they have suf- 
I fered to accumulate about the poor of this country ? I 
I have pondered the matter over and over, for I cannot 
, lightly dismiss from my mind such an accusation from 
! such a quarter ; and this is the best answer my lights 
i enable me to frame. In England — I dismiss for the 
j present unhappy Ireland — apathy towards suffering fellow- 
j creatures is not a common fault. You have truly said, 
I that benevolence is one of our fashions. Political causes, 
I misgovernment, and bad legislation have had by far the 
I greatest share in producing evils for which benevolence, 
often misdirected, has found no effectual remedies. 

It would require a pamphlet to expose all the particu- 
lars in which the administration of Mr Pitt and the states- 
men of his school tended to the increase of the curse of 
pauperism. During the war the enhanced price of pro- 
visions ought to have been met by a corresponding advance 
in the wages of agricultural labour ; but this the gentle- 
men, from mistaken views of their own interest, opposed. 
Mr. Pitt legalised the payment of wages in part out of the 
poor rate. In the southern and some midland counties, 
where this practice was adopted, continually increasing 
misery and degradation have ensued, and of late a 
desperate spirit of revenge, which is likely however to 
compel the adoption of effective remedies for the 
evil, some of which are already coming into operation. 
The fluctuations of commerce and manufactures; the 
transition from war to peace ; the weight of taxation ; the 
I invasion of England by swarms of miserable Irish, who 
I underbid our own working men in the already glutted 
'labour market; the great extension of machinery; the 
I general inclosure of commons, and the system of large 
j farms, are some of the many causes which have fatally 
conspired to the same end ; and you perceive that such of 



252 LETTERS 

these as admit of counteraction are rather in the province 
of politicians and statesmen than of private individuals. 
That our legislation has not been idle in the cause, a j 
slight survey of the objects of the greater part of the bills 
brought in every session would convince you. AATien the 
great reform is effected, you will see the result. Mean- 
time I regard all that is, and all that can be done for the 
poor, as palliative merely, and sometimes not that. The 
pauper is robbed of half his virtues as surely as the slave. 
He loses self-respect, the most irreparable of all losses ; 
and neither the alleviation of his physical wants, nor even 
the acquirement of knowledge when the means are not 
earned by his own honest labour, but conferred upon him 
as the alms of his superiors, have any tendency to raise 
him in the moral scale. Neither does religious or moral 
instruction, so conveyed, work its proper effect. It is re- 
ceived as a tax upon the dole which is expected to follow. 
The cant of religion has been widely diffused amongst our 
poor by these means, but of the spirit and power of god- 
liness little indeed. 

I am convinced that an effective missionary must begin 
with ' Silver and gold have I none.' He should be a poor 
man among the poor to reach their hearts and consciences. 
They have an incurable distrust of those who are called 
their betters in these matters — having indeed often seen 
religion perverted into an engine of state, or an auxiliary 
of the police. More good, I believe, is to be done in this 
country at present by striving to diffuse pure and elevated 
and liberal views on religion and virtue amongst the 
higher and middling classes, through whom they may 
gravitate to the lower, than by attempting at once to con- 
front degradation in its deepest caverns ; though I would 
by no means discourage the glorious few who feel in 
themselves a mission for these heroic efforts of philan- 
thropy. But the greater part of our would-be teachers of 



TO THE RET. DR. CHANNING. 253 

the poor stand themselves in great need of becoming 
learners, especially of humility and meekness. There are 
of course many, very many of a better stamp ; and I do 
look with a good deal of hope on the efforts now making 
for the establishment of Temperance Societies. But alas! 
how are we to cope with the evils of an already redundant 
and daily increasing population ? And Ireland, Ireland I 

I have laid out of my account another dire calamity 
with which we seem doomed to contend — the cholera. 
Eeached us it has, beyond question, and a few days will 
decide whether it be an infection from some single source 
capable of being by due care extinguished, or whether 
it comes as an epidemic menacing myriads. In the 
most favourable case much distress will arise, nay it has 
already arisen, from the interruption of trade, by which 
thousands more must be thrown out of bread. But should 
it assume the character of a real pestilence, who can even 
imagine the confusion, the misery ? Methinks I see the 
* grim features ' of Milton's own Death exulting that his 
' famine shall be filled,' and of the million and half of 
human creatures congregated in and near our vast metro- 
polis ! A remedy it may indeed prove for our over-popu- 
lation — but what a remedy ! 

To contemplate such horrors with perfect composure, is 
a height of philosophy I by no means aspire to reach ; but 
I trust I shall not be numbered with the panic-stricken. 
Hitherto, I have ever found that strength is given accord- 
ing to the call for it, to those who are not wanting to 
themselves. In the lives of those dear to me I am most 
vulnerable, but I bow to the Divine decrees ; and I have 
been quite enough familiarised with affliction to know 
what precious medicine it contains. For myself, I have 
never at any period within my memory viewed death as a 
subject of dread ; on the contrary, I have usually beheld it 
as an object of aspiration, and with a kind of solemn joy. 



254 LETTERS 

I believe that at any moment of my life I should have 
welcomed a call to die nobly. To expose myself to infec- 
tion when duty or affection bade I have never hesitated 
yet, and I trust I shall not now. 

It rejoices me to have been able successfully to vindicate 
to you the character and motives of Priestley. Too true it 
is, that we cannot spare even one from our list of worthies. 
I long for a fuller development of your delightful idea of 
our personal interest in the high qualities of others. It 
is quite a new thought to me, and opens to the most in- 
spiring views. Even in this state of being, the effects of 
a high principle, a grand discovery, a sublime poem, a 
noble action, extend quite out of sight and calculation. 
In other states they may reach to the whole race of man — 
I see nothing against it. Oh ! who would bear the sight 
and sense of human misery — that has indeed a soul to 
comprehend and feel it — without the cordial of high hopes 
and noble aspirations ! My thoughts are ever returning 
thither, to the invisible world, and thanks to you, they 
never return thence without bringing in their train deep 
peace. 

At length I am able to send you Mackintosh's ' Essay,' 
and I must give you the long tale which hangs by it. I 
long since begged Mr. Wliishaw to beg one for you of the 
author, which he promised; but accident prevented his 
doing so till Sir James had, as he believed, not one left ; 
but he was not quite certain, for he had been moving, and 
his books were in confusion. To add to the chance of 
sending one by the Farrars I then applied to Eees, my 
bookseller, who said with alacrity, *I will write to the 
Edinburgh publisher, and if there is one left. Dr. Channing 
shall have it.' He was as good as his word, and has sent 
one, which I see he hopes will be received in the nature of 
a peace-offering, from ' self and partners proprietors of the 
Edinburgh Keview.' For the man has grace, for a book- 



I 

TO" THE KEY. DR. CHANNING. 255 

seller, and besides he wants to stop my mouth about the 

! odious article. 

! But in the meantime, the report of your admiration of 

j his history so exceedingly gratified Sir James Mackintosh 
that he renewed his search, found a copy, and gave it to 

1 Mr. Whishaw to bring to me. It would have been most 
ungacious to refuse it, I have therefore accepted it for you ; 
meaning very honestly to keep it myself ; which will be 

j great luck for me, since it is not to be bought separately. 
I should have been mortified beyond expression if I had 
failed to procure one for you ; and I hope it will not disap- 
point you, but I expect it will pose your young readers 
more than once. 

Have you seen the spirited sketch of the history of the 
Italian republics by Sismondi, in Lardner's Cyclopaedia ? 
T think it very good indeed ; in a high republican strain, 
like all his works ; and the English very good for a for- 
eigner (not being an American). The author is now on a 
visit to Sir James Mackintosh, his brother-in-law, and I 
am to have the pleasure of meeting him at a neighbour's 
in a few days, should I be well enough ; but that is a 
great doubt, for I am a very poor creature, and seldom 
able to indulge myself with going into parties. The win- 
ter, however, has been remarkably mild with us ; I hope 
it may have been so with you likewise, and that you have 
been able to retain the precious power of occupying your- 
self for the public. 

I have written you an enormous letter, and I fear a dull 
one ; I doubt that you will think too that I look coldly upon 
plans for the benefit of the most numerous classes. But 
it is not so ; I only think that the political ferment must 
subside a little before anything effectual can be done. 
Our ministers seem to be dealing vigorously with the ills 
of Ireland ; peace and comfort there would remove many 
of our grievances. I will yet cling to the hoping side. 



256 LETTEES 

We are very loth to send you back the Farrars. They 
have pleased universally. Since Mr. Farrar has improved 
in health he has shown us that his talents are of no com- i 
mon order, and nothing can be more unassuming than his 
manners. Without any tincture of his favourite sciences, > 
I always found that it was easy to engage him in conver- r 
sation in which he appeared to take interest. 

I will now at length release you. \ 

Ever your sincere friend, ( 

L. AlKIN. 

] 

No. 18. I 

Hampstead: April 7, 1832. 
My excellent Friend, — Yours of Feb. 23 has just reached 
me. To find that the expression of my feelings respecting ( 
the effects of your wiitings had so gratified you, was 
delightful to me. But how is it that you can so underrate 
their power, that you can for a moment doubt the great, f 
the inestimable good you are working on many minds in 
many lands ? I must write to you a little more on this 
subject, and tell you what I think your greatest triumph, 
or at least that which most interests me, and it will lead \ 
me to a great topic hitherto untouched between us. The I 
impression you have produced on the minds of women is 
one for which I bless Grod from the bottom of my heart. I 
need not tell you how precious your teaching is in the eyes 5 
of Joanna Baillie, and I have long since, I think, told you 
that admirable Mrs. Somerville was your zealous disciple 
(but make the Farrars tell you more of her). I have 
now to mention that you have another in Mrs. Marcet. 
This lady has published, but anonymously, so that her 
fame has been less than her merit and success — Conver- 
sations on Chemistry, on Political Economy, on Natural 
History, and on Botany — all elementary works of great 



TO THE EEV. DR. CHANNING. 257 

solidity as well as elegance. She was the daughter of a 
wealthy Swiss merchant settled in London : her life has 
been almost equally divided between England and the con- 
tinent ; and her excellent qualities and rare powers of con- 
versation give her great influence both here and in Greneva, 
which she now calls her home. She has a charming 
daughter married to Edward Eomilly, ^ Of virtuous father, 
virtuous son,' and from her I lately learnt that her sister, 
Madame Eugene De la Kive of Greneva, was engaged in 
translating some pieces of yours for the ' Bibliotheque 
Universelle,' a meritorious periodical published there. 
The best and most sensible women of my acquaintance 
are, with very few exceptions, converts to your views. 
Now, considering that proneness of women to the religious 
affections, which is so capable of being either exaggerated 
into fanaticism or depraved into bigotry, I regard it as 
a circumstance of immense public importance that such 
ennobling, touching, and at the same time sober-minded 
views should be so respectably patronised amongst us. 
Whilst you take thought for the human race, I concern 
myself chiefly with my own sex, and oh ! that I could 
raise a prevailing voice against the manners, the maxims, 
the habits by which I see it fettered and debased ! If I 
could engage you to plead in this great cause I should 
esteem it half won. But I am ignorant how far the same 
evils and defects are common to us and our Transatlantic 
sisters, and I want much to discuss this subject with you. 
We modestly esteem ourselves the first of womankind 
for knowledge, for accomplishments, for purity of manners, 
and for all the domestic virtues. I am not sure that we 
are mistaken in supposing that the union of these recom- 
mendations is more frequent in England than elsewhere ; 
but even granting us the whole, there is much, much to 
be added and to be corrected. Amid all that is put into 
the head, the soul, and very often the reason, starves. 

s 



258 LETTERS 

Women are seldom taught to think. A prodigious 
majority never acquire the power of reasoning themselves 
or comprehending the force of arguments advanced by- 
others. Hence their prejudices are quite invincible, their 
narrowness and bigotry almost inconceivable, and amidst 
a crowd of elegant acquirements, their thoughts are fri- 
volous and their sentiments grovelling. Exceedingly few 
have any patriotism, any sympathy with public virtue. 
Private feelings, private interests engross them. They 
are even more insensible than you charge our public men 
with being of ^the greatness of the times in which we 
live.' Kammohun Eoy has been justly scandalised at the 
want of zeal for the reform bill amongst the ladies, and I 
sometimes pensively ask myself whether the country could 
now supply many noble Lady Crokes to exhort a husband 
to follow his conscience in public matters, regardless of 
the worldly interests of herself and their children. Luxury 
makes great havoc with the lofty virtues, even in manly . 
minds, and woman it quite unnerves, for the most part. | 
You look with some jealousy on the principle of patriotism \ 
as hostile to universal philanthropy ; but I am sure you I 
will agree with me that it is better to love our country | 
even partially and exclusively than to love nothing 
beyond our own firesides ; and when public good and 
private interest interfere, to feel no generous impulse to 
sacrifice the less to the greater. I wish that more women 
were nurtured in, at least, the Latin classics, because 
from them they might imbibe this elevating sentiment, 
without which they can never deserve the fmendshi'p, 
whatever thay may obtain of the love, of noble-minded 
men. If you will turn to one of Mrs. Barbauld's * Cha- 
racters,' beginning — ' Such were the dames of old heroic 
days ' (it was written, by the way, for the mother of Mr. 
Benjamin Vaughan, a grand-looking old lady, whose 
figure I still can recal), you will fully understand what 



TO THE KEY. BR. CHANNING. 259 

kind of spirit I long to inspire into my sex. Almost all 
my life this desire has been one of my strongest feelings. 
When a little girl I used to battle with boys about the 
Eights of Woman. Many years ago, I published ' Epis- 
tles on Women,' all to the same effect ; and though I now 
think I dare say as ill as anybody of the poetry of that 
work, it contains many sentiments which I still cherish, 
and would give much to be enabled to disseminate. You 
may understand by this more distinctly what I meant by 
saying that the higher and middle classes required to be 
better taught themselves before they took in hand the 
instruction of the poor ; and a great reason why I doubt of 
the good which women do in their visitations of cottages 
is, that I regard them for the most part as themselves the 
slaves of so many stupid and debasing prejudices. The 
theology of most of them is that of the thirty-nine articles, 
which you estimate as it deserves ; and original sin and 
the atonement are the favourite themes of their lectures 
to the poor, even to children. Nay, our orthodox curate 
told me himself the other day that he had interfered to 
prevent the lady-managers of the infant school from giving 
the babies interpretations of prophecies, concerning the 
twelve tribes of Israel, to learn by heart ! So undiscrimi- 
nating is their reverence for all that refers to the contents 
of any part of the Bible ! You know well, too, how the 
precepts of Christianity have been pressed into the service 
of a base submission to all established power. 

I am interested in your anticipations concerning France. 
It is much to require me to wish her to surpass my own 
country ; but I may truly say that in any real, that is, 
moral improvement of hers, I shall ever most cordially 
rejoice. This I hope I should do from a pure love of 
excellence, wherever it may manifest itself ; but merely as 
a patriot I must wish that our next neighbours, with 
whom so many amongst us are inclined to cultivate the 

S 2 



260 LETTERS 

closest intimacy — from whom we derive many fashions, 
practices and opinions — from whom we receive (with hor- 
ror I speak it) instructresses for so many of our innocent 
girls — should become more respectable and less a source of 
moral mischief to us. I own I still think extremely ill of 
their national character in every possible sense — they are 
regardless of the true, the sincere, the genuine, the natu- 
ral ; their vanity is odious to me, and their want of all 
decency, disgusting. I am far more interested in the 
Italians. Debased and corrupt as they are, there are noble 
features in their national character ; if free and united, I 
believe that they would again rise to glory of every kind ; 
and their literatul-e far more delights me than that of 
France — they have poetry, and a very noble spirit breathes 
in the works of Alfieri and some of their living writers. 
There are men of great merit amongst their exiles ; if they 
have left many equals or successors behind them, the 
country must and will emancipate itself before very long. 
But, my dear friend, is it our duty to be always fixing 
our eyes on the destinies of nations, on the state and cha- 
racter of mankind at large ? May we not often permit 
ourselves to dismiss from our care evils beyond our cure ? 
Or may we not lull the pain which these general -sdews are 
apt to inflict with some considerations like the following ? 
This world with all its ills, man with all his crimes and 
miseries, are yet such as their wise and beneficent Maker 
designed that they should be, foresaw that they would be. 
That good preponderates, we cannot doubt. All rational 
creatures, it is probable, find their life a boon even here — 
if not, how easily can futurity compensate transitory suffer- 
ings? Without falling into the Epicurean sentiment 
which you declare against, there surely is a sense in which 
we may say, ' whatever is, is right.' We ought not surely 
to refuse ourselves to the advances of that sweet peace 
^ which virtue bosoms ever,' because of sin and suffering 
of which we are not the cause. 



TO THE REV. DR. CHANNING. 261 

Believe it, we shall some time know how and why all 
these things are. In the meanwhile let the sensitive and 
ingenuous mind combat this anxiety as its * last infirmity,' 
remembering that His eyes and His love are upon all, the 
evil as well as the good, the destitute and wretched as well 
as the happy. Pardon me, pardon me, have I dared to 
exhort you ? But no, I believe that it is the unworthy 
body which is in fault, when you are overpowered by 
human ills or unsatisfied with the amount of good which 
Providence has enabled you to perform. I know well 
how mighty that amount has been. 

May you still be strengthened to go on adding to it 
many years! Our cholera turns out comparatively a 
trifle — what our reform will turn out is still in dread sus- 
pense. I feel entirely with you respecting the position of 
the lords. Should we, like France, be compelled, as you 
say, to separate ourselves from the old, there may be 
compensations for the inevitable evil of the parting, for 
posterity, scarcely for us ; and yet the intense excitement 
would be worth having. 

Ever most cordially yours, 

L. AlKIN. 



No. 19. 

Hampstead : July 15, 1832. 

My dear Friend — I yesterday received yours of June 7, 
which gave me variety of pleasure and pain : the hope of 
seeing you — the fear that continued ill-health might be 
the cause — sympathy in your sentiments towards a vene- 
rable parent, for such sentiments were my own whilst their 
dear object remained — all contended together; but being 
somewhat of an optimist, I settled it at length that either 
I should have the f jreat delight of seeing you, or else the 
satisfaction of hoping that you were in better health at 



262 LETTERS 

home. Ah ! that health, what a blessing to those who 
recover it after long wanting it ' I speak here experi- 
mentally. For the last few weeks I have regained a state 
of ease and vigour which makes my whole waking time 
one song of thankfulness. And opportunely has this great 
change come I I had been so despairing of ability to 
complete my work, that I had fixed to print it a fi-agment, 
stopping at the beginning of the war — a bitter disappoint- 
ment in many ways ; when almost suddenly I rallied, found 
myself able to work ; and now hope to bring out my Charles 
complete next winter. This makes me very busy, and I 
borrow from my sleep time to write to you. By the way, 
I have a long unsent letter to you in my paper case. I 
wrote it on the passing of our great bill, when we had just 
recovered from imminent dread of a civil war ; but at that 
crisis we were so whirled about by the feelings of the 
moment, that I felt I might give you impressions to-day 
which I should find all erroneous to-morrow, and therefore 
I kept silence. I will now say that we feel the more 
happy and triumphant in the victory, because the people 
gained it for themselves, and by means so peaceable and 
orderly as showed them fit and worthy to obtain it ; and 
because there is great reason to expect that excellent men 
will be elected to the coming parliament. Nothing has 
ever given me such good hopes for my coimtry as the 
conduct of the people at large on this occasion ; good 
judges think they already perceive that the labouring 
classes are raised in their own esteem, and are becoming 
more estimable in consequence. The taste for other kinds 
of reading, besides political, seems rapidly to increase. The 
' Penny Magazine,' set up by the Useful Knowledge Society, 
sells 120,000 copies; and this is only one of a multitude 
of cheap and wholesome productions which are eagerly 
bought up. To look back now upon the political state of 
the country, the state of knowledge, and the state of opin- 



TO THE REV. DR. CHANNING. 263 

ions within our own memory, and then to look forward is 
absolutely dizzying. Happy they who have been spared 
to behold so bright a dawn : the day I think is yet to 
come. It will next be seen what we can make of a church 
reform. The Irish resistance to tithes must lead, I believe, 
to vast consequences, here as much as there. A conscien- 
tious scruple of paying one's money is pretty certain to 
prove both obstinate and infectious. 

I feel quite enlightened by what you say respecting the 
mode of acting beneficially on the poor. My own opinions, 
I must own, were not the result of any personal knowledge 
of the subject, and perhaps I was secretly swayed by a 
wish to believe exertions useless to which I was myself 
indisposed. It now strikes me that a person visiting the 
poor with such knowledge of their situation and such sym- 
pathy for them as the poems of Wordsworth display, could 
not but work much good — but, alas ! to acquire such ac- 
quaintance with them is a business, a calling, and we 
cannot all devote ourselves like your admirable but 
enthusiastic friend. I will think more, however, on the 
subject; I have long felt an uncomfortable consciousness 
of deficiency in this great branch of duty. 

Poor Mackintosh ! You will, ere this, have learned that 
he is beyond the reach of your acknowledgments. He 
lies in the churchyard which I see from my windows. I 
thought there was a kind of appropriateness in the long 
train of em'pty coroneted carriages, with hat-band-wearing 
menials which followed him to his long home, and then 
drove back at speed without even waiting for the perform- 
ance of the funeral rites. 

I am not sufficiently acquainted with Hartley to give 
an opinion on his system, but it appeared to me in general 
that Mackintosh was fond of attempting to reconcile 
theories really incompatible with each other. And is it 
not rather too much of a subtilty to say that although 



264 LETTEES 

general utility is the test of right actions it can never be an 
impelling motive ? It is true that we cannot stop on all 
occasions to calculate the greatest good of the greatest 
number before we act, even if we possessed the necessary- 
data ; but surely we proceed upon a general idea of ten- 
dency to good in our actions ; and is not the dignity of i 
man more consulted by allowing reason that share in our i 
determinations than by supposing them to be governed by 
a kind of moral instinct or appetite ? But the more I 
think upon it the more I am struck with the complexity 9 
of human nature, and the multifariousness of the influ- 
ences to which every individual is exposed ; and the conse- 
quent extreme difficulty, if not impracticability, of finding 
out what is primitive in him. In one sense we may regard 
his utmost refinement as a part of his nature. We can 
none of us remember ourselves unsophisticated, if the in- 
fluences and suggestions of other minds be sophistications. 
We have never been left to the developments of our own 
powers, which is the reason that we know not by intuition 
whether or not we have any instincts unless those of 
suction and deglutition. I am disposed to question the 
soundness of all very simple theories of man, and that of 
association particularly, to which I also feel a repugnance 
in my heart. Oh ! if you do but come to England what 
prodigiously long conversations we shall have ! — our topics 
will be quite inexhaustible. In writing to you I am 
always overwhelmed by the abundance of matter. I want 
you to know multitudes of English people who would be 
interesting to you in various ways, and yet I feel that ex- 
treme caution would be necessary to preserve you from 
being overwhelmed by crowds, which is the mischief and 
the misery to which a name subjects all here. 

I find my historic task increase in interest as I proceed. 
The times are very favourable ; they will allow me all the 
liberty of speaking I desire ; and I have been fortunate in 



TO THE EEV. DB. CHANNING. 265 



[ procuring unpublished documents. A volume of the 
! correspondence of Sir. J. Eliot, the patriot-martyr, lies on 
I my table. Hampden was his chief friend, and Eliot was 
i worthy of all his affection. You can imagine nothing 
. more firm, more philosophical, more truly pious, than his 
! letters from prison. When at Christmas he was removed 
to a cell without fire, he writes to his friend : * I hope you 
will believe that change of place makes none in my mind.' 
The cold was his death. A confession of guilt and a hum- 
ble petition to the king would at any time have purchased 
his release ; but this price he would not pay. Let me love 
the land which bore such heroes ! ' Another family history 
lies before me, a folio manuscript. It is little or nothing 
to my pui'pose, but the writer was delighted to take a 
pretext for bringing it to me. He is such a personage as 
I suppose your country does not produce — a man who 
lives upon his pedigree. My friend is poor, for the entail 
was cut off and the title came to him without an acre : 
his father killed himself, his wife has eloped — though still 
young, sickness has made his once fine person a miserable 
wreck ; he has no career, and not even an heir male, but 
he knows that for seven hundred years a certain castle 
descended from father to son in his family ; he can trace 
his ancestry to Saxon times ; he has compiled their history 
with infinite labour ; he knows that one committed a 
murder, that another was tried for treason ; all this is a 
kind of conscious worth to him, and he is happy. Let 
me, however, give him his due. The polish of his manners 
has a kind of fascination, and it is impossible not to con- 
fess that pride of birth has made him at least a perfect 
gentleman. What is your opinion of this principle, or sen- 
timent ? Some regard it as useful to balance the pride of 
purse ; others look upon it merely as an arrogant assump- 
tion the more in society. I am inclined to look on it with 
some complacency as favourable to the graces, which cer- 



266 



LETTEES 



tainly purse -pride is not; but I see that it often tends to 
political servility. A poor man of birth becomes almost -■ 
unavoidably a hanger on of the court or the minister, and 
in one way or other subsists at the cost of the people. A 
rich man of birth sometimes places his dignity in defying ; 
present power and protecting the weak. In our late I; 
struggle the Howards, the Stanleys, the Russells, and the b 
Spencers have deserved very well of their country. But 
here you will say that I confound the political effects of 
nobility with pride of blood, which is a different thing. 
Certainly reason cannot respect a man the more because 
his ancestors possessed certain manors for a succession of 
ages, and were sheriffs and county members in their turns. 
It is seldom that anything moral is connected with this 
kind of boast. Jesus set Himself against the claims of 
those who said ' We have Abraham for our father.' And 
yet temporal goods at least are represented to have been 
promised to the Jews on that very score. This strikes me 
as an eminent instance of what I should call His philoso- 
phical spirit. His sense of divine justice, or His enlarged 
philanthropy. It is somewhat in the same spirit with, 
what you remarked of His instituting no priesthood. 

I wish you would tell me whether there is any channel 
by which one could now and then send you a book which i 
was likely to interest you, and which you might otherwise , 
miss. I longed to convey to you a 'Life of Wiclif ' by! 
Le Bas. You would find in it much curious and inter- > 
esting matter. There is the very noble and striking cha-: 
racter of the reformer himself, with many instructive traits 
of his times — full confirmation of what I once assiomed to 

o 

you as the cause of the small resistance made to our re- 
formation, namely the wide diffusion of Wiclif s principles ; 
and there is curious proof how much an exceeding High 
Church-man of the present day, such as is Le Bas, falls 
short of the old reformer in simplifying religion. Aft-er 



TO THE REY. DR. CHANNING. 267 

great struggles he brings out the frightful fact that Wiclif 
i would fain have abolished bishops and established a kind 
I of presby terian discipline. This volume makes the first 
of a set to be called the ' Theological Library,' in which the 
ablest pens of the High Church party are engaged. Le 
Bas is noted as a bitter reviewer of polemics ; he is cer- 
tainly an able writer, and affluent in knowledge. 

My paper reminds me to release you. How eager I 
shall be for the next notice of your determination. Pray 
make health your first object. 

Ever most truly yours, 

L. AlKIN. 

No. 20. 

Hampstead : Oct. 15, 1832. 
I will follow your example, by answering your letter 
immediately — always the time when one is most disposed 
to answer. I liked everything in it but the report of your 
susceptibility to cold so early in the season. Here we 
have one of the finest autumns ever known. I wish I 
could bag up for you the west wind which is waving his 
balmy wings at my open window. I still live in hopes 
that we shall some time or other lure you hither, and then 
you will know whether I was right or not in promising or 
threatening that you should be a lion. That you would 
soon be weary of performing that part I can readily be- 
lieve, but I am sure that we have minds over which you 
must rejoice to feel the benignant influence which you 
have exerted. You desire me not to use my recovered 
energies too freely. There is no danger. Eager as I am 
for the completion of my long task, I am not permitted to 
sit too closely at it, for I am now surrounded by a close 
circle of friends and neighbours who tempt me daily into 
delicious idleness — if I may call that social intercourse 



268 LETTERS 

idleness in which neither head nor heart is unoccupied. It., 
will be three or four months yet before I shall have made 
an end of King Charles ; but I begin to ask myself, what 
next ? With my habits of literary labour, vacation will 
soon become tedious, and I must look out for another 
task. Pray assist me. I am resolved against proceeding 
further with English sovereigns — Charles II. is no theme 
for me ; it would make me contemn my species. If I 
could discover how my pen could do most good, to that 
object it should without hesitation be devoted. Profit I 
have no need of, and of reputation I have all I want. My;; 
mind is often burdened with the consciousness of doing . 
little good, and an ignorance in what way to attempt 
doing more. If I am capable of benefiting any class, it 1 
must be one considerably removed from the lowest, of ^ 
whom, whatever you may think of the confession, I have j 
never seen enough to know at all how to address them. > 
One comfort is, that there is still plenty of ignorance and 
noxious error to be pointed out in all classes. But the , 
office of censor morum is not one which I covet ; for who i 
and what am I ? I can imagine, but I know not whether ( 
I could execute, something in the way of essays, or letters, 
moral, literary, and miscellaneous, which might be made 
to serve good ends. But this is quite in the air. 

Know that a great new light has arisen among English [ 
women. In the words of Lord Brougham, ' There is a deaf 
girl at Norwich doing more good than any man in the i 
country.' You may have seen the name and some of the i 
productions of Harriet Martineau in the ' Monthly Reposi- i 
tory,' but what she is gaining glory by are ' Illustrations of 
Political Economy,' in a series of tales published periodi- 
cally, of which nine or ten have appeared. It is impossible 
not to wonder at the skill with which, in the happiest of 
these pieces, for they are unequal, she has exemplified some 
of the deepest principles of her science, so as to make them ■ 



TO THE REV. DE. CHANNING. 269 

'plain to very ordinary capacities, and demonstrated their 
I practical influence on the well-being, moral and physical, 
; of the working classes first, and ultimately on the whole 
i community. And with all this, she has given to her 
narratives a grace, an animation, and often a powerful 
pathos, rare even in works of pure amusement. Last year 
she called on me several times, and I was struck with 
marks of such an energy and resolution in her as, I 
I thought, must command success in some line or other, 
though it did not then appear in what. She has a vast 
store of knowledge on many deep and difficult subjects ; 
a wonderful store for a person scarcely thirty, and her 
observation of common things must have been extraor- 
dinarily correct as well as rapid. I believe you may 
dismiss your fears of too wide an extension of suffrage 
under the reform bill. The total number of ten-pound 
I householders turns out less than almost anyone expected, 
I and the ' degraded class ' are almost all lodgers, and the 
condition of a previous paying up of rates annexed to the 
privilege of voting has so much further reduced them, 
that in many places the constituencies are manifestly still 
too small to be out of reach of bribery. It is impossible 
quite to suppress anxiety for the general result of the 
coming elections, but all the friends of rational liberty I 
talk with are full of happy auguries. It is quite true, as 
you say, that the tories have made, and are still maJdng, 
themselves both odious and contemptible; but I do not 
think the public peace is threatened, because it seems 
pretty certain that they will be left in a decided minority 
in both houses, so that the people can afford to forgive 
them. John Bull is not of a vindictive temper, especially 
when a plentiful harvest has put him in good heart and 
good humour. You think quite as well of our bishops as 
they deserve. The venerable Bishop of Norwich, of whom 
Sydney Smith happily said, * he should touch for bigotry 



270 LETTERS 

and absurdity,' stands very much alone amongst them ; ' 
however, I do not wish them hurt in the least, nor fright 
ened further than is necessary to urge them to quit their ^ 
political station. The separation of Church and State is, in 
my opinion, by much the most important victory which 
the people have still to achieve. 'WTien our bishops shall 
be in the state of your bishops, certainly my animosity i 
against them will extend 'not a frown further,' but till 
that happens, all fair means of lessening them in the eyes f 
of the people must be allowed. It is even marvellous to f 
see how much the church is daily losing ground. It has 
no longer the reverence of the lower classes in general, 
and by the middling classes it begins to be regarded with 
the same feelings as the lay tories so generally excite. 
Its best friends come forward with plans of moderate 
reform. So long as Dissenters are compelled to pay 
towards the support of a church which they regard as 
corrupt in discipline and doctrine, and the preachers of 
which still thunder against the sin of schism and labour j 
to bring sectaries into the hatred and contempt of their > 
hearers — so long the state religion must, and will, and 
ought to be the object of hostility and attack to all lovers 
of equal justice and of the best interests of man. Such, 
at least, is my sense of things. I think you can scarcely 
imagine the tone taken by High Church people of the upper 
classes on these matters. A lady who belongs to the first 
circles, taking for granted that one must be orthodox, ex- 
pressed to me lately her horror at worthy and learned old 
Baron Mazeres, who ' towards the end of his life not only 
became an unitarian, but endeavoured to propagate those 
doctrines.' As if a man ought to think his own opinions 
dangerous or pernicious to others ! 

Your cholera precautions are indeed admirable, and I 
trust they will prove effectual. Here the disease continues 
making considerable ravages, but we begin to gTow used to 



TO THE EEV. DR. CHANNING. 271 

it. It does sometimes, however, attack Very sober and re- 
spectable people. I have personally known some victims of 
this class. Soon after it appeared in London, great alarm 
was excited by the death of a lady of quality, till it was 
charitably whispered that the temperate need not be the 
more apprehensive on account of this event. It is suspected 
that the Irish in St. Griles's and such places have perished in 
considerable numbers, but they disguise the cases from 
their violent prejudice against early burials without the 
accompaniment of a drunken wake. How are we to 
civilise these wretched people ? Not by dragooning them, 
say you, and I agree ; but this negative is more clear than 
anything positive respecting them. I wonder whether 
you have seen a small book published by Eammohun Eoy 
containing translations of several of the Hindoo Veds ? I 
have found a good deal of interest in this view of theology 
and metaphysics of a nation so remote in every respect 
from us and our ways of thinking. The great point which 
the true friend of his country and his race has had in view 
in his various controversies with his own countrymen, has 
been to show that, although some idolatrous rites are 
sanctioned by their sacred books, yet it has always been 
the doctrine of the most authentic of these, that the 
highest future happiness was only attainable by a pure 
and austere hfe, and the worship of the invisible, uni- 
versal Spirit — that idolatry was for the gross and ignorant, 
rites and observances for them only. Thus he shows that 
eternal felicity — that is, absorption into the supreme spirit, 
is promised to women who after the death of their hus- 
bands lead devout and holy lives ; and only a poor lease 
of thirty-five millions of years of happiness with their 
husbands to such as burn with them, after the expiration 
of which their souls are to transmigrate into different 
animals. This you will say is mighty puerile, but it is at 
least meeting his antagonists on their own ground. After- 



272 LETTERS 

wards he details the many cruelties and oppressions to ii 
which females in his country are subjected by the injustice >^ 
and barbarity of the stronger sex, and pleads for pity 
towards them with such powerful, heartfelt eloquence as |: 
no woman, I think, can peruse without tears and fervent I 
invocations of blessings on his head. The Eajah is now 
at Paris, where I doubt if he will find much gratification, 
as he is not well versed in the French language ; he will 
return to us, however, soon after the meeting of parliament. 
I dread the efi'ects of another English winter on his con- 
stitution ; and yet it almost seems as if a life hke his must 
be under the peculiar guardianship of Providence. 

What a charming poet is your Bryant ! I am just read- 
ing Mr. living's collection of his poems. Do you know the 
author ? I am curious about him. 

I am not acquainted with anybody in your country who 
would take charge of a book for me ; but anything that 
should reach either Kobert Kinder, or Dr. Boott, or Mr. 
P. Vaughan, would be forwarded to me. 

A brimful sheet, as usual I In writing to you, my ex- 
cellent friend, I never want matter. May health and 
every good attend you. 

Yours ever truly, 

L. AlKIN. 



No. 21. 

Hampstead: Nov. 19, 1832. 
Oh, my dear friend, I was told yesterday that you had 
been very, very ill, and though it was added that you were 
now better, I have been able to think of little else since. 
WTiat would I give to know how you are at this now 
that I am writing. This distance which separates us has 
something truly fearful in such circumstances. Would 



TO THE REV. DR. CHANNINa. 273 

you had postponed all other considerations, however 

'urgent, however affecting, to the one great object, your 

; own health ! Would you had sought our milder skies 

I early in the autumn ! I fear that, unless you should have 

I embarked ere this, it must not be thought of till spring ; 

I but surely you will then transport yourself hither, and 

thus escape one of the trying seasons of your cUmate, 

which I take the early months to be. I have lately seen 

I two or three very striking instances of the wonderfully 

restorative effects of our southern coasts in pulmonary 

cases. At this time I have a friend at Hastings reported 

quite well both by himself and others, who was absolutely 

given over last spring in London, and whom for some 

time in the summer, which he spent at Hampstead, I 

never saw within my doors without fearing it was for the 

last time. Another friend has been so fortified by two win- 

I ters spent in the south, after the case seemed desperate, 

[ as now to be enabled to return to her native cold and wet 

Lancashire, where she has medical permission to winter. 

Well ! I would not tease you with more of this ; no doubt 

you have around you both the skilful and the kindest of 

the kind. My great inducement for writing was the hope 

that a little of this mute kind of chit-chat, which calls for 

no exercise of the voice in answer, might somewhat cheer 

your sick-room ; at least you will accept it with kindness, 

as the only thing in which I can show my deep interest in 

the benefactor to whom I owe what is above all price — the 

sentiments which do most towards rendering us worthy of 

the future. Never, my friend, are you forgotten when 

my soul seeks communion with our common Father, and 

when I strive most earnestly to overcome some evil pro- 

' pensity, or to make some generous sacrifice, the thought 

I of you gives me strength not my own. 

I I have written to you so lately, and so largely, that 

I some of my usual topics are nearly exhausted ; still we 

i T 



274 LETTERS 

have a little of novelty. In the beginning of November ; 
term begins, and all the lawyers come to town. With their i 
arrival commence my London dinner visits ; for my most ^ 
intimate friendships happen to be amongst this set, and I j 
have already made one excursion to town, from which I ? 
gleaned a good deal. You know, of course, by reputation, j 
our new Lord Chief Justice, Denman — ^the zealous defender » 
of poor Queen Caroline, who in his excitation called our ? 
last king Nero, and our present one ' a base calumniator.' I 
He wants caution, and is not the deepest of our lawyers ; [i 
but his promotion is hailed by all congenial spirits as a li 
triumphant example of the highest professional dignities c 
attained by a man who never showed any other fear than i 
that of being thought capable of sacrificing the most ? 
minute portion of truth, the nicest punctilio of honour, \ 
to any worldly interest. Glorious days in which such i 
conduct finds such acceptance ! On his taking leave of 3 
Lincoln's Inn in consequence of his promotion, a speech was i. 
made to him by his old friend the Vice-Chancellor, com- t 
plimenting him on the love of liberty he had ever mani- [ 
fested in a strain which drew tears down the furrowed |» 
cheeks of the old benchers — practised worldlings as they i 
must be. This glorious man — by the way, his person is ^ 
made for dignity — was Mrs. Barbauld's pupil at four i 
years old. I think it must have been chiefly for him that i 
her ' Hymns in Prose ' were written ; and he cherishes her 
memory most religiously. In a great public entertainment p 
where I met him last year, he came up to me and said Jj 
with a look of delight, ' I dreamed of Mrs. Barbauld only 1 
last night ! ' He has a love and a taste for poetry and I 
elegant literature worthy of her scholar, and I doubt not S 
that she sowed the seed. In the move which Denman's 
appointment has made, another staunch friend of the 
people has become Solicitor-Greneral. It is of great im- 
portance thus to recommend the laws to the many by the 
character of those who administer them. 



TO THE REV. DE. CHANNING. 275 

I think I told you Hallam had become a conservative and 

I alarmist ; but he seems to me to have recovered his spirits 

■ since last spring, and to be relapsing into a liberal. He 

j confesses to me that he is reading hard for a purpose, but 

will not yet say what. We again evoked together over 

I the decline of literature, and modestly concluded that it 

I was our duty to write as much and as well as we could. 

I We canvassed much the good and evil of the new Penny 

': Magazines and Cyclopedias, which are selling by hundreds 

I of thousands ; and all we could decide was, that condemn- 

i ing the superficial and desultory spirit which these and 

I other periodicals and abridgements were fitted to difi'use, 

it was still impossible not to rejoice that food so innocent 

was found for the popular mind, and was welcome to it. 

An indirect benefit we also acknowledged from this new 

literature; its having to a great extent superseded the 

religious tracts of the Evangelicals, which their busy zeal 

threatened to render the exclusive study of the working 

classes. Perhaps it is in this last respect that the Useful 

Knowledge Society has proved most beneficial; and no 

doubt it was a leading, though unavowed object of the 

founders thus to put fanaticism's nose out of joint (if you 

will allow such a grotesque expression). 

Are we, or are we not, at war with our old friends the 
Dutch ? This seems to be a question which nobody knows 
very well how to answer. For my part, I have such an 
opinion of the natural pugnacity of the human species, 
that I dread exceedingly these beginnings of strife ; but 
poverty, the peace-preserver, still keeps watch over every 
European potentate, and I trust will withhold the means 
of mischief. There can be no doubt of the pacific dispo- 
sitions of our present ministry ; but they are unhappily 
committed in some degree by the acts of their predecessors, 
and there is also some danger that the obstinate King of 
Holland, by presuming too much on our forbearance, may 

T 2 



276 LETTERS 

render it a point of what is called national honour to 
forbear no longer. These are anxious considerations. No 
one can pretend to calculate the confusion and mischief 
which the expense of one campaign might cause to us in 
our present situation. But let us not be ' over curious to, 
shape the fashion of uncertain evil.' j 

These November fogs have brought me down a little from [ 
my high boast of health, and interrupted somewhat myj; 
historic diligence. I suspect that the weakness in my chest | 
will oblige me to keep the house in all ungenial winds this , 
winter. But no matter, my fireside is cheery. My dear new 
neighbours, the Le Bretons, are an inestimable acquisition. 
Here I paused to welcome Harriet Martineau, with all 
her blushing honours thick upon her. The Chancellor 
has sent for her expressly to "svrite tales illustrative of 
pauperism, and has supplied her for the purpose with an 
immense mass of documents accessible only to official 
persons. I believe she will do much good ; her motives 
and principles are pure and high, and success, as I pre- i; 
dieted, has improved, not spoiled her. Indeed, she has ,. 
very extraordinary talent and merit, and a noble inde- 
pendence of mind. I will stop here ; may this little 
pledge of friendship find you in a state at least of tolerable 
ease. I shall enquire of you from every probable source 
of intelligence. [ 

May heaven preserve my precious friend. i 

L. AlKlN. 

No. 22. 

Hampstead: Feb. 10, 1833. 

Many, many thanks to you, my dear friend, for your 

two welcome letters, and the excellent news they contain ! 

It is, indeed, delightful to find you speaking so cheerily, 

both of the past, the present, and the future, and the most 



TO THE KEY. DK. CHANNING. 277 

delightful of all is, that you still think of England. To 
level some at least of the mountains which, as you say, 
still rise between us, will be no hard task. First, the 
barbarous and odious practice of whipping is obsolete in 
nearly all our schools, except the public ones of ancient 
foundation, such as Eton, Westminster, &c., to which many 
other considerations would restrain you from sending your 
son. In that attached to the London University, to which 
my nephew goes, 230 boys are kept in order without any 
corporal punishment ; in short, we would ensure your lad 
a whole skin. Then, as to your sweet girl, there would 
really be no more danger than everywhere arises from the 
little acquaintance which parents in general can have with . 
the individucd characters of the younger generation who 
are their children's contemporaries. You might easily be 
directed to families the most likely to afford fit asso- 
ciates for her. I cannot persuade myself that the very 
small difference of temperature between a snug situation 
in the immediate neighbourhood of London, and the 
southern coast, would be of moment to you — compared to 
the difference between the last and New England, it is 
nothing. Even in this village, placed as it is on a hill, 
very sheltered nooks may be found, and the air is emi- 
nently salubrious, and oh, if we could get you all here, 
how much we could do — I am confident we could — towards 
placing you in the midst of a small select circle where you 
would be appreciated, and your children would form con- 
nections such as you could not but approve ! Several 
circumstances render society here peculiarly easy and 
pleasant ; in many respects the place unites the advan- 
tages and escapes the evils both of London and the pro- 
vincial towns. It is near enough to allow its inhabitants 
to partake in the society, the amusements and the accom- 
modations of the capital as freely as even the dissipated 
could desire ; whilst it affords pure air, lovely scenery. 



278 LETTERS 

and retired and beautiful walks ; and because everyone is 
supposed to have a London set of friends, neighbours do 
not think it necessary, as in the provinces, to force their 
acquaintance upon you ; of local society you may have ' 
much, little, or none, as you please ; and with a little, i 
which is very good, you may associate on the easiest terms ; 
then the summer brings an influx of Londoners who are 
often genteel and agreeable people, and pleasingly vary 
the scene. Such is Hampstead ; ask Mrs. P^'arrar if I ex- 
aggerate. The subject threatens to run away with me; 
but here I leave it, for I have much to answer. 

I like and can subscribe to your praise of Scott as a 
writer. Sir James Mackintosh was no doubt brought up a 
Calvinist ; but I have seen a letter of his written from India , 
to his old friend Kobert Hall, then lately recovered from an | 
attack of insanity, in which he warns him against dwell- j 
ing on gloomy systems of religion as no one could have i 
done who was a Calvinist ; or, I should think, who beHeved I 
salvation dependent on any 'particular creed. Eead in i 
the last number of the ' Edinburgh Eeview,' the article on j 
Lord Mahon's history. I believe you will think the writer i 
of it much improved since he reviewed Milton, and gave ' 
so dashing a sketch of the Puritans. This writer is 
Macaulay, confessedly the first young speaker in the 
House of Commons. As reviewer, as orator, as politician, 
he, if anyone, promises to be the successor or rival of 
Brougham. I have never seen him, but I hear of him as 
presumptuous, at least this luas his character at the outset. 
He grapples boldly and ably with O'Connell in the House. 

On the brink of civil war yourselves, you might well 
be excused for thinking little of Europe and her concerns ; 
but we here give you credit for too much wisdom by far 
to proceed to that dread extremity, and I trust that h\ 
this time you are coming to some amicable compromise ; 
if so, you may be willing to hear something of the pro- 



TO THE KEY. DR. CHANNING. 279 

gress of our revolution. Yes, revolution ; it is no less, of 
this it is impossible not to be more and more sensible 
every day. The Eeform Bill now shows itself fully in the 
character of means to an end — and what end ? Of this 
different parties would give different accounts; that is, 
some require more, some would be content with fewer 
concessions of the few to the many ; but all agree that 
numerous and important ones must and will be made. 
Ireland, miserable Ireland I a prey to so many evils, 
stained with so many crimes, and almost reduced to anar- 
chy, what shall we do for her ? To return into the right 
way after wide deviations, is as arduous a task in the 
government of nations as in the conduct of individuals ; 
in fact, almost all the puzzling questions in public, as in 
private morals, arise from having set out wrong. The 
Protestant Church of Ireland is probably the most mon- 
strous anomaly, the most barefaced wrong, in all ecclesias- 
tical history ; but it cannot be overthrown without some 
consideration for the vested rights enjoyed under it, and 
the same may be said respecting other interests there. 
Then, although the people are enduring many evils and 
-oppressions, they must not be suffered to fill the land with 
robbery and murder ; and the political agitators, though 
their views may be patriotic, and though by their efforts 
some wrongs have been and others will be redressed, must 
not be suffered to go on goading a ferocious people to 
fury, and an absurd people to folly and ruin. The Union 
must be preserved for Ireland's own sake. It is impossible 
to dwell upon these considerations, without alternately 
blaming, pitying, and dreading all parties. But how 
wonderful and admirable is the complication of good with 
evil in the whole system of things ! How unexpectedly 
do the results of things come out ! To the Irish papists, 
the objects of their bitterest, their most inveterate hatred, 
have the descendants of the English Puritans been 



280 LETTERS 

indebted for their establishment of their civil rights. 
To the crying iniquity of the Church of Ireland, English ] 
Dissenters are likely eventually to owe emancipation from 
the exclusive claims of the Church of England. I view 
with intense interest the progress of the Church reform in 
which we are engaged. Take my word for it, it will go i 
far, and end in the acknowledgment of broad principles. 
Protestant exclusiveness, when cited to the bar of reason, 
has nothing, absolutely nothing, to say, and this is a rea- 
soning age. Thousands are coming to a clear perception 
how completely the interests of the Church and the interests 
of religion are different, nay, opposite things. Nor do I 
fear that, according to the distinction of Hume, fano.ticisra 
should here gain what superstition is likely to lose. The 
schoolmaster is fast emancipating the people from both, 
and without producing irreligion. 

Eternal honour to Brougham for his Useful and Enter- 
taining Knowledge, and his ' Penny Magazine ' ! They have 
done very much towards beating Evangelical tracts, and the 
good boy books of the High Church tories, out of the field. 
The whole tendency of these publications, as far as I know 
them, is to instil that sober morality, that pure and simple 
piety with which, as you would say, narrow and debasing 
views of Grod and of religion cannot coexist. And do you 
think you have done nothing towards this great work ? You 
should see a little work published by Mr. Tagart, a London 
Unitarian minister, the 'Life of Captain Heywood,' to 
learn in what esteem your writings were held by a noble- 
minded, beneficent, upright naval officer. There is a 
chord in all such hearts which responds to your teaching. 
I hear of your writings, see your name mentioned on all 
sides ; even our clergy mention it with deep respect. Oh ! 
come to us ; breathe our air, which may preserve you in 
vigour, not alone for your own sake, or that of yom' family, 
but for England's and mankind's ! 



I TO THE KEY. DR. CHANNING. 281 

t 

Mr. Vaughan's ship, with your precious volume, for 
which I return you my best thanks by anticipation, is not 
yet arrived ; but he says he expects it daily. I have had 
a glimpse, however, of the English reprint of the book ; a 
glimpse only, for it was lent to Mr. Le Breton and to me, 
and in our mingled politeness and impatience, we have 
been sending it to each other, and then snatching it back, 
so that neither of us has yet had much good of it. He 
has been an active circulator of your works, and no one 
more delights in them. You must know each other some 
time. I lament over the unpoetical destiny of the poet 
Bryant; his admirers should have endeavoured to have 
procured for him some humble independence ; but it will 
be long, I suspect, before you pension men of letters. We 
do little in this way. As to poor Spurzheim, I hear, for I 
never saw him, that he was much liked in society, and 
our anatomists much admired his mode of dissecting, or 
rather unravelling, the texture of the brain ; but his system 
made few disciples amongst men of real science ; and 
though I believe he individually was thought tolerably 
ingenious in it, a shade of empiricism was cast over him, 
which prevented his ever taking rank here; and his 
pecuniary encouragement was small. I think the spirit of 
philanthropy is almost a national characteristic of the 
frank and honest Grermans ; their writings, as far as I can 
judge of them from translations and critiques, very gene- 
rally breathe it ; and in the midst of their credulity and 
mysticism there is a deep and original vein of thinking 
which I should delight to explore if I possessed their 
language. 

There is no hurry for a new scheme to succeed ' King 
Charles ' with me. Never was I so tasked ; matter grows 
upon my hands ; to condense it sufficiently is an immense 
difficulty. The book will certainly disappoint you when 
finished, in this respect if in no other : I have been 



282 LETTERS I 

obliged, in order to keep within compass and preserve ' 
the character of court memoirs, to say little or nothing of i 
the Pm-itans after the beginning of the war. When the king i 
quits his capital so do I, and thenceforth he and his courtiers { 
make my sole theme. I have still full three months' work j 
to do, but I am pretty well, and work with pleasure. 

WTiat I wrote you of Miss Martineaa and of the Rajah's i 
book, I cannot now remember ; but I have full confidence | 
in your discretion, and shall be but too happy if anything | 
I write you is capable of being made useful. Miss 
Martineau has been engaged by the Chancellor to write, 
from materials in the possession of government, a series 
of tales illustrative of the working of the poor laws. She 
says the documents are rich in pathetic interest. I believe 
she is doing much good. Joanna Baillie has written some 
very affectionate lines on Scott, which she will send you. 
I know not why she should have taken this opportunity 
to strike at Byron. No need of crying down one poet in 
order to cry up another ; nor will all the just censures of 
Byron's morality sink him in his poetical capacity, in 
which he will still be judged to soar far above the height 
of Scott ; whom my father used to call the chief only of 
ballad poets. His stories in verse are now almost forgotten 
in his prose narratives, but I think undeservedly. It is 
true indeed that it is only in his novels that he displays 
that power of humorous delineation of character which 
was one of his greatest gifts. 

Farewell, my valued friend ! May health attend you, 
but may you seek it here ! 

L. AlKIN. 

No. 23. 

Adelphi : June 13. 1833. 

My dear Friend — Congratulate me ! Yesterday I cor- 
rected the last sheet of 'King Charles.' My long and 



TO THE EEV. DR. CHANNING. 283 

arduous task is ended ; my time is now my own, and the 
first use I make of it is, as it ought to be, to return you 
my thanks for your excellent volume, so long unacknow- 
ledged, and to resume the thread of our correspondence. 
You would take for granted that some of your discourses 
would be less to my mind than others, and so it is ; but 
how can I sufficiently thank you for the profit and delight 
of those which give an echo to my deepest convictions, 
my loftiest feelings, those which work out for me pro- 
blems of the highest interest, on which my mind has often 
tasked itself in vain ! The two sermons on self-denial, and 
that on the immortality of man, are to me inestimable ; nor 
is there one in the volume in which I do not find much to 
admire, to agree with, and to profit by. I think I per- 
ceive in this volume, as compared with your former 
writings, traces of recent and profound study in the science 
of metaphysics. I have been exceedingly struck by the 
newness as well as the cogency of some of your reasonings, 
particularly those in page 238. As usual, I feel how long- 
it must be before I can make myself entire mistress of 
the bearings of writings which contain so much food for 
thought, which seem to me new at every fresh perusal ; 
and one of the pleasures of my leisure will be to go 
through them again, pencil in hand, marking my favourite 
passages. You are full of maxims ; I have often wished to 
collect them by themselves as hints for meditation. 

As soon as my book is out, which will be, I suppose, in 
a week, I shall consign to Mr. Vaughan's care a copy for 
you. It is of no use telling you all my fears and mis- 
givings about it; you will judge for yourself, and freely 
communicate to me your remarks. The times are un- 
doubtedly favourable for uttering the facts which I have 
been most anxious to put in a clear light ; and it is not 
nearly so much the fear of any criticism, as the sense of 
having after all done very imperfect justice to my subject 



284 LETTERS 

— partly from the necessity of omitting a great number 
of matters which would have swelled the book incon- 
veniently — that now troubles me. I am going to dissipate I 
for a week in London, and that holiday I expect to enjoy ; 
but domestic solitude and the habit of labour will soon be 
impelling me to seek a fresh pursuit, and my great care 
at present is to choose well and choose speedily. I cer- 
tainly shall not go on to give the world a nearer view of 
the abominable court of Charles II., and this is all that I 
am certain of as yet. In other respects * the world is all 
before me.' I suppose that by the time this reaches you, 
Mr. Eoscoe's Life will be on your table. I am just be- 
ginning to devour it ; to you it cannot have all the same 
sources of interest it has to me, but I shall be much dis- 
appointed if you do not find it one of the most delightful 
of biographies and collections of letters. Perhaps you 
will find in it a proof of what I have failed to persuade 
you of, that in this country the spirit of aristocracy opposes 
no obstacle to the progress of real talent. Mr. Eoscoe was 
a splendid example of rising from the ranks. I think 
I have never mentioned to you James Montgomery the 
poet ; but you probably know some at least of his poems, 
which would interest you from the fancy and the feeling 
which animate them, and from their deeply devotional 
spirit. He is a great master too, as I think, in the art of 
versification. I wish I could detail to you the particulars 
of his early life as he beautifully related them in letters 
to my father, whom he had not then seen. It is enough, 
however, to tell you here, that he was the son of a 
Moravian missionary, brought up in one of their semi- 
naries, and that he had never seen an EngHsh verse, 
excepting their hjrmns, till he was about fourteen ; when 
one of the masters walking in the fields with a few of his 
pupils, made them seat themselves on the grass, and drew 
from his pocket Blair's ' Grave,' which he read them. ' I 



TO THE KEY. DR. CHANNING. 285 

seemed,' said Montgomery, ' to have found a language for 
sentiments born with me, but born dumb.' And from 
this time he became a writer of poetry. He quitted the 
Moravians for the Wesleyan Methodists ; has suffered at 
times from religious melancholy, only less, I believe, than 
Cowper; but of late years his mind seems to be tran- 
quillised, in part perhaps by the active exertions in which 
he has engaged in behalf of missions, Bible societies, and 
other religious objects. He retired from his business of a 
printer some years ago, on a competence, and, what seems 
to me very remarkable, has erected himself into a critic. 
He has given lectures on poetry at the Eoyal Institution, 
which were much admired, and lately he sent me a copy 
of a publication of which they form the larger and better 
part. I wish you could see it; there are portions, es- 
pecially some remarks on the themes of poetry, and on its 
uses, which I know you would be pleased with. I am far 
from saying that I do not feel in the work the defective 
education of the writer in classical learning, and the pre- 
judices rooted in his mind by the systematic fanaticism of 
the sect which brought him up ; but still it is the work of 
an original and very interesting character, and the purity 
and tenderness of his mind and heart everywhere shine 
through. This fragment of a letter has travelled with me 
to London, and I can now tell you of some of my amuse- 
ments. I dined yesterday in the company of Mr. Malthus 
and Miss Martineau, who are great friends and allies. 
Perhaps you may, and perhaps you may not, have taken 
the trouble to read the pro. and con. articles respecting 
Miss M. in the ' Quarterly ' and ' Edinburgh ' Eeviews, of 
which the first is full of malice, and the second, I think, 
very empty of sound critical matter. She pursues her 
course steadily, and I hear much praise of her new tale 
on the Poor Laws, which I have not yet read ; I fear, 
however, that it is the character of her mind to adopt 



286 LETTERS 

extreme opinions on most subjects, and without much 
examination. She has now had a full season of London 
lionising, and it is no small praise to say that, as far as 
we can judge, it has done her nothing but good. She 
loves her neighbours the better for their good opinion of 
her, and I believe thinks the more humbly of herself for 
what she has seen of other persons of talent and merit. 

My bookseller tells me that the editor of the ' Edin- 
burgh Keview ' proposes now to give an article on my six 
volumes of Memoirs together. This annoys me not a 
little, and I will beg it off if I can. I have prospered 
pretty well under the silence of the critics, and it pleased 
me to have no thanks to give them. Also, I suspect I 
should fall into the hands of the same dull and tasteless 
critic, or rather gossip, who reviewed Miss Martineau ; in 
whose prolix articles I have often stuck fast, and from 
whose remarks I should expect little benefit. It is like- 
wise to be considered, that if praised in the ' Edinburgh,' 
I should certainly be abused in the ^ Quarterly.' 

Do you mark the course which our absurd conservatives 
are taking ? Nothing could be more fortunate for ministers 
or more dangerous to themselves than the vote which they 
carried in the House of Lords. I hear the Duke of 
Wellington is so violent that he would gladly push the 
difference btween the two Houses even to civil war. "\Miat 
madness ! Does he not perceive it would be the peers 
on one side and the nation on the other ? And as for the 
bishops — No ; words cannot do justice to their infatuation. 
Have you made this reflection on our triple legislature — 
that the king can free himself from an intractable House 
of Commons by a dissolution, that a House of Commons can 
compel a king to change his counsels by refusing the 
supplies, but that neither king nor commons, nor both 
united, possess any regular or obvious means of controlling 
the lords, consequently, that if they oppose the general 



TO THE EEY. DR. CHANNING. 287 

will with obstinacy, they expose themselves to imminent 
danger of seeing their privileges curtailed or perhaps 
abolished. The bishops' votes especially hang by a thread. 
How I long to know whether you are proposing to cross 
the sea to us ! I cannot help thinking it would answer to 
you in every way. It is really a new world since you 
saw England. The progress in many ways has been of 
unexampled rapidity. You would find London embellished 
beyond expression. I ramble amongst the new buildings 
with unceasing admiration, striving in vain to recal the 
old state of some of the best known streets. We may now 
boast in the British Museum of a collection to which the 
world has nothing comparable, and the suite of rooms 
lately added is worthy of its destination. What adds a 
moral interest to this assemblage of the treasures of nature 
and art is the splendid testimony it affords to the public 
spirit of Englishmen. The gifts of individuals to their 
country preserved here are almost of inestimable value, 
even in a commercial view. In France, on the contrary, 
their museums have been entirely furnished by the 
purchases or the plunder of the government. Not even 
ostentation there moves private persons to make presents 
to the public. There is another pleasing circumstance. 
A few years since, access to the Museum was so difiicult 
that it was scarcely visited by twenty persons in a day ; 
now, in compliance with the spirit of the age, it is thrown 
open to all, and Brougham's 'Penny Magazine' has so 
familiarised all readers with the collection, that you see 
the rooms thronged by thousands, many from the humblest 
walks of life. I observed common soldiers and * smirched 
artisans,' all quiet, orderly, attentive, and apparently 
surveying the objects with intelligent curiosity. Depend 
upon it there never was a time in which true civilisation 
was making such strides amongst us. You said very 
justly some time ago, that we were only in the beginning 



288 LETTERS I 

of a revolution; the spirit of reform has gone forth, con-r 
quering and to conquer, every day it extends its way into ; 
new provinces ; but it is, it will continue to be, a peaceful; 
sway, a bloodless conquest. The strongholds of abuse j 
yield, one after another, upon summons. Wellingtons 
himself will not be able to bring his * order ' into conflict j 
with the majesty of the people. I never looked with so j 
much complacency on the state of my country. I believe j 
her destined to a progress in all that constitutes truei 
glory, which we of this age can but dimly figure to our- 
selves in the blue distance. The bulk of our people are 
at length well cured of the long and obstinate delusion 
respecting the wisdom of our ancestors, which so power- 
fully served the purposes of the interested opposers of ^ 
improvement. Novelties are now tried upon their merits ; 
perhaps even there is some partiality in their favour. 
Pray, pray, come and judge of us with your own eyes ! 
Believe me, ever yours most truly, 

L. AlKIN. 

No. 24. j 

Hampstead: Oct. 23, 1833. 

My dear Friend — Just as I had embarked in one of my 
pamphlet -letters to you, comes yours of August 30th; and 
it makes me begin afresh, that I may first notice its contents. 
I am glad you have been reading the life of Eoscoe, and 
feeling so much with me respecting it ; — hovj much you 
may learn if you please from the forthcoming number of 
the ' Edinburgh Review,' where I obtained leave to be the 
critic. But this pray keep quite to yourself; I never 
before wrote an article for any review but the ' Annual,' 
and should be very sorry to be known in this, as it might 
cause me to be suspected of what I never wrote. 

You ask if I received a letter from you last spring or 



TO THE REV. DR. CHANNING. 289 

[Summer. I not only received one of May 30th, but wrote 
ian answer, which I think you ought to have received 
Ibefore the one to which your last is a reply ; I sent it as 
■usual through Dr. Boott, and fear it may have been lost, 
perhaps delayed only. No, on recollection, I believe that 
letter of mine accompanied my book, which I hope you 
have by this time. Since that I have had your line by 
Dr. Tuckerman. I was in Kent when he called here, and 
therefore only saw him last week, but I am exceedingly 
struck and delighted with him, and impatient to hear him 
speak more of his noble exertions and designs. On 
Thursday next I hope he and Mr. Phillips will meet over 
my breakfast table my friend Mr. Le Breton and dear 
Joanna Baillie. You will be with us in spirit, for many 
associations will bring you to the minds of all of us. 
When I have the privilege to be present at a meeting like 
[this, of the gifted and the excellent from the far ends of 
|the earth, it seems to me a foretaste of the happiness 
eserved for the world of spirits. Alas for one who gave 
e this feeling beyond all others — the admirable Eam- 
ohun Eoy! He has been frustrated of one of his 
herished hopes, that of seeing you face to face, either in 
his or the other hemisphere — but you were no strangers 
each other. Scarcely any description can do justice to 
is admirable qualities, and the charms of his society, 
is extended knowledge, his comprehension of mind, his 
niversal philanthropy, his tender humanity, his genuine 
[dignity mixed with perfect courtesy, and the most touch- 
ing humility. His memory I shall cherish with affection- 
tte reverence on many accounts, but the character in 
rhich I best love to contemplate him is that of the friend 
|and champion of woman. It is impossible to forget his 
righteous zeal against polygamy, his warm approval of the 
freedom allowed to women in Europe, his joy and pious 
gratitude for the abolition of suttee. Considering the 

u 



290 LETTERS 

prejudices of birth and education with which he had % w, 
contend, his constant advocacy of the rights and interests, 
of the weaker sex seems to me the very strongest proo'; 
of his moral and intellectual greatness. ^ 

You are very kind in what you say of your expectations 
from my late work and my future exertions in literature 
and this encourages me to talk to you a little of myself anc 
my affairs. I am very well satisfied with what is said of mj 
^ Charles.' All whose opinions I have heard seem to thint 
I have been diligent and impartial, and they praise mj 
style for its clearness and simplicity, my remarks for just- 
ness, and particularly for their moral tone. This is th( 
kind of commendation which I most desired, and if 1 
could find out in what walk of literature I should be most 
likely to earn more of it, that walk would be my choice 
But I am still quite undetermined on this head. In fact 
I have had as yet little leisure for reflecting upon it, as 1 
can show. Early in August, having printed my seconc 
edition, and seen my niece married, I set out for Sand- 
gate, a very agreeable watering-place near Dover, where 
I should have enjoyed my leisure much had I found mj 
strength equal to the fatigue of the little journey, and ol 
the walking and riding necessary to explore the country^ 
But I came back ill, and had scarcely done nursing my-,, 
self when I was called upon to assist my poor niece in 
nursing her young bridegroom, who was three weeks con- 
fined in my house with a fever. I had the satisfaction, 
however, of sending him home well recovered, and next, 
week I am myself proceeding for London, to take up my 
abode for three months with my brother Charles and his 
family. I go prepared to see and hear all I can, and 
thence to judge how I may best and most acceptably 
employ my pen. I sometimes think that a volume of 
essays might be useful addressed to my o-svn sex, and 
chiefly intended to point out the particular vocation of 



TO THE REV. DR. CHANNING. 291 

i women in these times of change and improvement. I am 
'I of opinion that few of them have yet raised their minds 
■ to the ' height of this great argument,' and that there is 
' no small danger of their becoming despicable in the eyes 
I of high-souled men by an anti-popular spirit, and a 
I determined preference of trifles and triflers to everything 
i truly great and elevated. I am far from wishing to play 
'j the censor, or to lay down the law ; a few suggestions 
'I modestly thrown out, and temperately discussed, would 
] suffice for what I mean. Bulwer Lytton in his ' England 
'I and the English,' a book which is making some noise 
' here, falls violently upon the Englishwomen for their spirit 
\ of aristocracy, which, indeed, he considers as the prevailing 
- spirit of the whole people ; and I know you have the same 
I idea. I want to go to the bottom of this matter, to con- 
(i sider what is strictly speaking a spirit of aristocracy — its 
■i causes, effects, remedies. One thing is plain, that in any 
country where, as in the old monarchies of our continent, 
noble birth should be the only passport to power, distinc- 
tion, and command, the spirit of aristocracy could never 
be that of the nation, but only of the privileged class 
which profits by it. If, therefore, it pervades all classes in 
England, it must be because no one is excluded by birth 
from the hope of becoming in some mode or other a 
member of that large and loosely defined upper class 
which is supposed to comprehend all the meritorious and 
all the fortunate. Aristocracy in old France, in Venice, 
and in England, at the present day, are three things so 
distinct, that they ought not to bear the same name. 
Bulwer reproaches us ladies at our horror at associating 
"with tradesmen, a horror which causes all young men who 
]can possibly find the means to crowd into the professions, 
Iwhich are greatly overstocked. To this, perhaps, the 
jladies might be content to answer, that tradesmen, shop- 
jkeepers that is, are equally excluded from fashionable 

I D 2 

I 



:^92 LETTERS 

clubs and other resorts of gentlemen, that in truth their 
education and manners seldom entitle them to admission 
into either refined or literary society, and that individuals 
who deserve to be made exceptions to the rule usually - 
are so. If ladies were equally guiltless of his otherp 
charges against them, that of flattering the follies and 
vices of the high-born and wealthy young men — it would 
be well. But the disgraceful practice of fortune-hunting,^ 
much more prevalent now among women than it ever was^' 
amongst men, renders this kind of vicious assentation very 
frequent, especially in the highest circles, and it deserves! 
to be severely rebuked. There is great encouragement J 
at present for all attempts at raising the moral tonei 
amongst us. It fills me with joy and gratitude to con 
template the many reforms now proceeding with a refer-f' 
ence to this end. The abomination of slavery put away 
from our people ; poor factory children taken under the 
protection of humane laws; Church abuses effectually 
checked, and tithe compounded for; the criminal law 
amended ; the poor laws revised ; election bribery severely- 
repressed, and the boundless corruption and jobbing of 
close corporations cut up by the roots. Carry all these 
great measures from their causes into their evident and 
unavoidable results, and say if ever there was in the 
history of mankind a revolution so morally great and 
glorious! But I need not boast — you generously rejoice 
and triumph with us, and I on my part sincerely hope- 
that your country will not long suffer us to put her to 
shame with the word slavery. All fears for the working 
of emancipation in the colonies seem to have died away. 
I value commercial greatness as little on the whole as you 
can do, but yet I do rejoice in the present prosperity of 
our manufactories, because the full employment of the 
poor in most parts of the country will signally facilitate 
the meditated retrenchments of the relief granted at 
present by parishes to those who ought to live on the 



TO THE EEY. DK. CHANNING. 293 

I 

' wages of their labour. To dispauperise the working 

; classes must be the first step towards raising them from 

! their degradation. After that there will be a fair field 

' for the efforts of Dr. Tuckerman and his missionaries ; 

at present they would have to struggle against a system 

of premiums for improvidence and self-indulgence, such 

as no other nation ever had the absurdity to institute. 

Miss Martineau is doing good service in crying it 

down. 

It rejoices me to find you so full of cheering hopes 
respecting your own health and capacity for further 
usefulness. In these cases we can very often when or 
because we feel strongly the wish and the hope, and I 
reckon upon seeing the two heaps of materials converted 
within a reasonable time into so many volumes. You 
have great influence here, and I cannot help wishing that 
you would take some occasion to explain to us the advan- 
tages of the perfect equality in which all religious sects 
are placed amongst you. With us, people are just begin- 
ning to perceive the injustice of assessing dissenters to 
the Church rates ; this once admitted, long consequences 
may be deduced. I think our universities cannot long 
continue to require from laymen subscription to the 
Church articles, since the sacramental test is in all cases 
abolished, and even Jews are now admissible to every 
civil office. Mrs. Jameson's book I have not seen, and 
scarcely heard of. ' Silvio Pellico ' has been much read and 
praised, but I have not yet found time to read it. I think 
you would be interested in the life of that great preacher 
Eobert Hall. There is something affecting in the evident 
struggle which his powerful mind and benevolent heart 
maintained for many years against the horrors and ab- 
surdities of the Calvinistic faith in which he had been 
educated, and into which he finally almost relapsed. He 
was also an illustrious example of the mind rising superior 
to dreadful bodily sufferings. 



294 LETTERS 

An intelligent friend of mine, lately from Paris, said to 
me of the Parisians, ^ They are the most irreligious people 
of the world, but yet they have five or six new religions 
which they have invented.' She also said, ' Morals are so 
very bad there, that I think they can grow no worse, or 
rather, that they are beginning to mend.' She mentioned i 
as a particular source of corruption the manner in which |I 
young girls of the higher class are married. A father p 
says to his daughter, ' You are to be married to-morrow.' 
He names the gentleman, and it is one whom she has 
never seen. Yet she always submits without resistance or 
repugnance, regarding matrimony like presentation at 
court, simply as the customary and indispensable prelimi- 
nary to coming out in the world, and being somebody. 
Young girls are never seen in company except at balls. 
The conversation in mixed society is unfit for them to 
listen to. Single women have there no existence, A 
great proportion of the marriages are brought about by 
paid brokers. Can you picture to yourself any state of . 
things so utterly degrading to woman ? It is remarkable \ 
that the French have no writers of any note at present, 
except in the sciences. 

I have kept my letter open till I could tell you of the 
visit of your two friends. It was to me a most agreeable 
one. I was much pleased with the intelligence of Mr. 
Phillips, and the excellent information which he gave us 
in answer to our many questions respecting your country. 
Much of our conversation related to the state of religion 
and the arrangements for the conduct of religious worship 
amongst you, and I told them both that Americans could 
do nothing so useful to us as to publish these particulars 
in refutation of the prevailing notion here, that religion 
could not be supported without an establishment. Dr. 
Tuckerman is immersed in the study of our poor laws ; 
very few of us, I suspect, know so much about them. I 



'to tee rev. dr. channing. 295 

am struck with his eloquence, and should like much to 
witness its efifects on his poor hearers. Such self-devotion 
must command admiration and reverence from the most 
depraved. I held up to him your letter in triumph. 
' Let me look at his hand,' he cried, and he took it and 
kissed it repeatedly. What a perfect friendship is yours ! 
Long may you live to enjoy it! Nay, death will not 
end it ! 

Ever yours with true regard, 

L. AlKIN. 

No. 25. 

Hampstead: Feb. 2, 1834. 
My dear Friend — On my return yesterday to my own 
house, after a sojourn of three months at my brother 
Charles's in London, I found your kind letter just arrived 
to welcome me, and I will not resist the impulse to make 
an immediate return to it. You gratify me much by 
what you say of my book ; I perceive, however, that you 
think I a little want indulgence to Charles. This makes 
me regret that I forbore to sum up his character. I 
shrunk from the task as a difficult, and in some sense a 
dano^erous one: for I should have made for him such 
allowances on account of education, and the influences 
generally to which his situation exposed him, that the 
almost unavoidable inference would have been, that all 
kings must be, more or less, the enemies of liberty, of 
public virtue, of the happiness and progress of mankind. 
I have come as near this inference as I well could, by 
showing that Charles was absolutely suckled in falsehood 
and dissimulation, and that as prince he thought himself 
as much above the laws of social morality as those of the 
land; but I believe I ought somewhere to have distinctly' 
stated, that in his most unprincipled acts he was probably 



296 LETTERS I 

i 

never self-condemned except in the case of Strafford. I 
plead guilty to complicity. I knew that this French word 
was scarcely naturalised, but it had been used ; I had a 
vague idea that my father thought well of it ; and knowing 
no English word of the same meaning, I ventured. May, 
one not now and then do these things with good effect?! 
I am not conscious of any other offences in this way, but 
it is likely enough that I may unconsciously have picked 
up odd words from my old authorities. Certainly, in the 
course of my labours, collateral subjects of remark did 
now and then occur to me ; but I fear I have let them 
slip away. I do, however, feel some temptation to venture 
into the essay line, when, perhaps, thoughts might recur | 
on the morals of history. At present, however, I am I 
absolutely like poor Burns, ' Unfitted with an aim.' One 
friend suggests to me Memoirs of Caroline, queen of 
Greorge II. ; another would have me go on to Cromwell ; 
another would send me back to Edward III., as a subject 
out of harm's way, involving neither theology nor poHtics. 
' The literary class,' said the very sensible advocate of the 
last scheme, ' are almost all for Church and State, and 
your last subject is one which they do not like. They 
would not have much enquiry into King Charles.' This 
remark might lead me wide into a dissertation upon our 
present state of political and religious feeling ; but before 
I enter such a field, I think it prudent to answer some 
passages of your letter. 

I wonder not at your deep feehngs on the subject of 
slavery. It is worthy of you so to feel, and to devote your 
powerful pen and all the energies you can command to 
that great theme. I am quite incompetent to pronounce 
any opinion of my own on the state of our islands, but 
that excellent old abolitionist WilHam Smith seems to 
me highly satisfied with the working of the new system 
hitherto, and Dr. Lushington also. It has been said that 



TO THE EEV. DR. CHANNING. 297 

the planters begin to judge it conducive to their own 
interests — a grand security for their exertions to make it 
answer. It seems that the protection of the black popu- 
lation will be secm-ed so far as law can secure it, by 
depending on a reformed magistracy which, in other 
respects, is likely to be welcome to the planters. But I 
know not the particulars. 

Excellent Eammohun Eoy : I wish I could obtain more 
particulars of him to offer to you ; but like all remarkable 
foreigners in this, and I suppose in other countries, he 
was beset by the enthusiastic, the ignorant, the imperti- 
nent, and often the malignant ; in his case political and 
theological passions conspired, and he was misrepresented 
on all hands. That good man Dr. Carpenter has published 
an account of him, and I know of no better. It is now 
known that the title of Eajah, which some suspected him 
of unwarrantably assuming, was conferred on him regularly 
by the Grreat Mogul, or King of Delhi as he is now called, 
in the gharacter of his ambassador. He was able in 
negotiation, and obtained for his master the large sums 
which he claimed of our government. In his demeanour 
there was all the dignity and gracefulness of high caste 
tempered with not only courtesy and benignity, but with 
a kind of humility only to be accounted for, as Dr. Boott 
acutely observed, by recollecting that he belonged to a 
conquered people, and had been compelled in India to 
submit to social inferiority. It was impossible, however, 
to charge him with servility. He sometimes evaded 
indiscreet questions, but the information which he gave 
voluntarily was so precise and satisfactory that it was 
impossible to question its perfect truth. His knowledge 
of languages was prodigious, and when he spoke of the 
light cast by an acquaintance with oriental literature and 
manners on the sense of scripture, or when he explained 
the laws and customs of his country, with the modifica- 



298 LETTERS 

tions which they had sustained from its Mussulman ^ 
conquerors, you perceived that he was able to draw from 
all that he had learned and seen the inferences of a clear 
sagacious mind. But perhaps his greatest charm was the ? 
atmosphere of moral purity in which he seemed to breathe 
To women this was peculiarly striking ; he paid them a t 
homage reverential as that of chivalry, without its exag- 
geration. Absolutely new to their society as he must 
have been, an innate sense of propriety revealed to him 
always the right thing to say and do. Persecution, 
calumny, injustice, public and private, only strengthened 
him to endure in a good cause, without either saddening 
or embittering his spirit. Benignity was the leading ] 
characteristic of his countenance and his expressions, his 
love of liberty was fervent, and nothing which concerned p 
the welfare of his brethren of mankind was indifferent to 
him. May we indeed meet that pure and noble spirit V 
where only such are admitted ! 

Of Godwin's domestic habits I know nothing ; but it is 
unfortunately true that he has often been reduced to 
solicit pecuniary aid. The late Earl Dudley gave him a 
thousand pounds. The mercy of Lord G-rey has rescued him 
from this humiliation, by conferring on him the office of a 
keeper of records, with 300Z. per annum. It was his mis- 
fortune or folly to adopt, with the other debasing views of 
the French school, their contempt of chastity in women, 
and he took for his second wife a person of bad reputation : 
a connection which has tended, in various ways, to disgrace 
and embarrass him. 

Bentham I did not know, and I have never heard any- 
thing respecting his religious opinions. There is no hint 
of atheism in his theological works, nearly all of which I 
have read ; these are full of logical and critical acuteness. 
His dissection of the ' Church Catechism ' in his ' Church 
of Englandism ' would amuse you, as well as his sarcasms 



j TO THE REV. DR. CHANNING. 299 

! on ' My Lords the Bishops,' whose ' very footmen are 
! clothed in purple.' Mr. Whishaw, I think, characterised 
I him very happily when he called him ' a schoolman born 
I some ages too late.' He lived latterly in a narrow circle 
of worshippers, reading nothing and writing incessantly ; 
I and probably did not sympathise extensively enough with 
other men to understand human nature profoundly. 
Consequently he was rather fitted to supply legislators 
i with principles and suggestions, than to legislate himself. 
Brougham has very handsomely acknowledged his obliga- 
tions to him for the idea of many of his reforms, par- 
ticularly, I think, his legal ones. Eomilly, a man of great 
piety, lived in strict friendship with him. Neale seems 
to be a slight and rather paltry person, very little qualified 
to measure the mind of Bentham, and probably only knew 
him in extreme old age. On such authority it would be 
unwarrantable to impute to an innocent and certainly a 
benevolent and public-spirited man, one of the ablest 
thinkers and the most skilful logician of his age, the 
brutish absurdity of atheism — a word, as you well know, 
used by ignorant or prejudiced people often without any 
definite meaning. The masterly lectures on jurisprudence 
published by my friend Mr. Austin, a very zealous pro- 
mulgator of the utilitarian system founded by Bentham, 
are firmly based on theism, though they make no refer- 
ence to Christianity, with which, however, their subject 
had no concern. I have just been assured, on what I 
think pretty good authority, that neither is Grodwin an 
atheist. 

During my stay in London, it was my great object to 
learn what our world is doing and thinking — and this is 
what I make out. Literature is low indeed — swamped, as 
our phrase is, by the tract makers, with the Useful Know- 
ledge Society at their head. Bulwer has protested with 
good reason against the prevalent practice of anonymous 



300 LETTERS 

writing. We shall at this rate soon have no such character 
as an author amongst us ; the public will account it as 
idle to enquire who wrote an essay, or even a book, as 
who set up the types — and one artificer will become as 
much a mere labourer for wages as the other. But that 
this state of things cannot well become permanent in a : 
civilised country, it would almost break one's heart. In the i 
meantime, the nullity of literature leaves all the thinkers \ 
and all the talkers at leisure for a few great practical f 
subjects, which must become the business of Parliament in 
the coming session. These are. Church reform, poor-law 
reform, and general education. On the first some things 
are decided as far as ministers are concerned. They ,: 
will bring forward a commutation of tithe, and probably t 
some new regulations against pluralities and non-resi 
dence. They will propose to grant the dissenters redress \ 
of their grievances in respect of marriages, burials, and 
birth registries, and may, perhaps, be willing to exempt 
them from Church-rates. But here is the danger ! Tlie 
orthodox, that is, the Calvinistic dissenters, or Inde- 
pendents and Baptists, emboldened by their great and t 
growing numbers, and by what they view as the spirit of i 
the times, have plainly declared that they regard the 
whole connection of a favoured sect with the State as an 
abuse and an injustice ; and that they will never be satis- 
fied till it is totally dissolved. This decision, made in 
defiance of the prudential remonstrances of the calmer 
and better informed Unitarians, is beginning, as it seems, ^ 
to produce a strong reaction in favour of the Church ; to 
which, with a small exception for Catholics, and another 
for Unitarians, the whole of the two Houses of Parliament 
and of the nation, down almost to the shop-keepers and 
mechanics, is at least nominally attached; and which 
carries with it also most of the agricultural class, and a 
good portion of every class. There is danger, therefore. 



TO THE REV. DR. CHANNING. 301 

to the most moderate claims of the dissenters, should the 
ministers desert their cause ; to the ministers themselves, 
should they remain steady to it ; and I dread from the 
whole affair a fierce renewal of religious dissensions, and 
of a persecuting spirit directed against all sectaries and 
free enquirers. It would be most unfortunate should a 
measure of general education be proposed and carried into 
effect during such an access of High Churchism, as its 
character would of course be narrow and exclusive, and 
the effect would be to fix on the children of dissenters a 
universal stigma. It is also certain that nothing would 
strengthen so much the hands of the tories as a rally for 
the Church. Nor would the poor-law question be unin- 
fluenced by such a crisis. To promote a spirit of inde- 
pendence amongst the labouring classes would not be the 
aim of triumphant squires and parsons. I am obliged to 
state all this very crudely, but verbum sapienti. You 
will see on the whole that our state is an anxious one. I 
could wish that the Irish Church question were first to be 
dealt with. It was Catholic emancipation which repealed 
the English Test and Corporation Acts. You will not 
wonder that, with my historic experience, I dread beyond 
everything the mingling of ecclesiastical disputes with 
questions of civil government, especially as our people 
are much less advanced in religion than in politics. Fear 
nothing for Dr. Tuckerman. He interests us the more for 
his bursts of sensibility. ' He has enthusiasm,' said Mr. 
Le Breton happily, ' but no fanaticism.' We all love him, 
and his suggestions are heard with respect by persons who 
have both the will and the power to carry them into effect 
to some extent. He could not have visited us at a better 
time : the state of the poor has become such, that all agree 
something must be done to amend it, and everyone who 
can speak from experience on the subject is heard with 
deep attention. There is much benevolent activity 



302 LETTERS 

amongst us, which only wants and asks to be well guided. 
We are all struck with his eloquence. ' He took me by 
the button,' said Mr. Le Breton, ' last time I saw him, 
and certainly preached a short sermon ; but I did not wish 
it ended.' In fact, the oftener he is heard, the less one 
wishes him to end. Since I finished the last sentence, I 
have taken two ladies to call on him ; I never heard him 
so interesting and eloquent in the illustration of his I 
principles and plans. The ladies were all attention ; and 
one of them, who lives with her brother, a country clergy- 
man, and devotes herself with him and his daughters 
to the welfare of a village, found much correspondence 
between their modes of proceeding and his — except that 
they talk to the people of original sin. I admired the 
dexterity with which he slid over this difiference. He has 
more tact and sagacity than I ever saw united with such 
ardour. You trace a beautiful outline of what essays for 
women ought to teach. I fear I could not fill it up ; but 
I feel that in these days knowledge of points of debate is 
necessary, to prevent our quick feelings from making us 
fierce upon them. Ignorant partisans are always the 
most violent. Candour, the virtue of the wise, is that in 
which women are most deficient. 

I fear I must at length have quite wearied you ; in 
writing to you I know not where to stop. 

I rejoice in the good account you give Dr. Tuckerman 
of your health. Believe me ever. 

Most sincerely yours, 

L. AiKiN. 

Xo. 26. 

Hampstead : May 29, 1834. 

My dear Friend — In your welcome letter received about 
ten days since, you said it was long since you had heard 
from me, but I think you must very soon after have re- 



TO THE REV. DK. CHANNING. 303 

ceived a long one from me ; at least, I wrote one and 
consigned it as usual to Dr. Boott. This is to go by Dr. 
Tuckerman, whom we are very loath to part with, for we 
all revere and love him, but there is some satisfaction in 
his assurances that he also loves us, and will do his 
utmost to send you to visit us. Mr. Phillips we hope 
to keep a little longer. He is a general favourite, and 
perhaps even better liked in society than his friend, 
whose mind is almost engrossed by one subject. It mor- 
tified me to catch only a glimpse of Mr. Dewey, his stay 
was so short that he was gone before I could find an op- 
portunity to invite him. I heard great praise of his pulpit 
eloquence from very good judges. Send us more such 
visitors, they will do much to overcome prejudices on both 
sides. And now to reply to the questions in your letter. 

' Grodolphin' I have not read. I understand it was written 
by a Mr. Sunderland, who is genteelly connected, and was 
educated at Oxford ; but as his extreme youth cannot have 
allowed him extensive opportunities of observation in any 
society, it would be unreasonable to put much faith in his 
view of manners. All novelists run into exaggeration of 
one kind or other, for the sake of effect. Formerly they 
were chiefly reproached with painting ^ faultless monsters,' 
whose charms and graces threw all living merit into shade, 
and disgusted young people with the sober realities of 
life. But this was a splendid sin compared with that of 
the present fashionable school, who exaggerate nothing 
but vices and follies, and delight in representing as odious 
or contemptible those classes who will nevertheless con- 
tinue to be objects of envy to most of their inferiors. In 
high, as in low and in middle life, there will always be many 
who yield to the peculiar temptations of their situation, 
but many also who resist, and I know no reason whatever 
for believing that our aristocracy are worse in any respect 
than in past ages ] on the contrary, I know some strong 



304 LETTEKS 

reasons for thinking that in several respects they are 
better. No one denies that they are much less addicted 
to drinking, less also to gaming ; for men play less, in i 
general society at least, and women scarcely at all. I \ 
cannot say whether there is less licentiousness, but you 
who have read Walpole will not dispute that there is \ 
much more decorum, much more of at least outward f 
respect for religion and virtue, and I think it is plain that 
even hypocrisy must put some restraint on vice. Then it 
is certain that the circumstances of the times keep the f 
higher classes in a state of extraordinary mental activity; 
that they feel it necessary to cultivate all their talents, to 
inform themselves on every question of practical impor- 
tance, and at the same time to preserve the graceful 
accomplishments which may serve to conciliate public 
approbation. 

With respect to what you have heard of a class of 
fashionables who set their own pretensions above those of 
rank and title, there is something in it ; the most fashion- 
able persons in London are so rather by merit, if one may 
so apply the term, than by birth. A certain talent, or tact, 
is necessary to become an ^ arbiter elegantiarum ; ' and 
although there may be not a little of presumption and 
conceit amongst the eocclusives, they have at least the 
recommendation of daring to show great lords and great 
ladies that they may be looked down upon in society if 
they rely too much upon mere rank and pedigree. You 
cannot without seeing it imagine the charm which waits 
upon a patroness of Almack's. Perfect good breeding is 
a beautiful thing to behold, and no fiiie art deserves to be 
more studied. 

I leave it to Dr. Tuckerman to describe to you the 
society in which he has lived, which consists chiefly of the 
higher part of the middle class, and is the same with 
which I mostly associate. I know he will give you a good 



TO THE BEV. DR. CHANNING. 305 

jaccount of it, and that he will especially attest the zeal 
• prevalent in this set for the improvement of the character 
i and condition of the poor. Much is doing for the ignorant 
land degraded, and I trust that they will not long be 
I numbered by millions, even in Ireland. Immense things 
I are in agitation regarding the poor and regarding the 
I Church, and both subjects are approached by many, 
'' especially the first, in a pretty good spirit. I do not yet 
wish to see the establishment overthrown, because at 
present the fanatics would be able to seize the chief 
power and oppress all free enquirers ; but it will do mother 
Church no manner of hurt to be put in mind of her end, 
and the Dissenters are wilHng enough to jog her memory 
on this subject. The worst is, that we must expect an 
increase of bitterness and animosity as these Dissenters 
proceed, for when was ever an ecclesiastical question settled 
'in a Christian spirit? And in the meantime, I grieve 
I to see literature swamped as it is between politics and 
theology. You may enquire in vain for light reading. 
Poetry we have none, and though we have novels not a 
few, I really know of none which are much praised by 
people of taste. We can scarcely find new works sufficient 
to keep our Book Society alive. The dearth is something 
quite strange, and hardly credible at a time when every- 
body affirms that there is more reading than ever in the 
country. I suppose people will be tired of two-penny 
tracts ere long, and then there will again be a demand 
for books. In France there is an equal stagnation, in 
Grermany alone literature really flourishes, although, or 
perhaps because, literary labour scarcely brings there any 
pecuniary reward, on account of the impossibility of 
securing copyright beyond the limits of a single state. 
The most laborious works, I hear, are composed by pro- 
fessors of universities, as in some measure a part of their 
duty, or a means of distinction. I wish I could tell you 



306 LETTERS I 

that I am again settled into some substantial work, but I • 
cannot yet fit myself with a subject. Two in English] 
history have engaged my attention ; that which you sug- 
gest, — the Commonwealth, and the two first Georges. But 
I rather dread the quantity of dry reading, especially oft 
the polemical kind, which the first w(Juld require, and in ; 
general the ruggedness of the theme, on which it would . 
scarcely be practicable to strew flowers. The second also ^ 
somewhat affrights me by its magnitude, for the materials ^ 
would be redundant, and it also repels me by the want of 
great and interesting events ; in short, I am not enough \ 
pleased with either of these periods to be willing to live 
in it for years. Sometimes I meditate another kind of j 
writing — essays, moral and literary. I seem to myself to 
have some thoughts which it might be useful or agreeable 
to put on paper ; but here fears and scruples of many i 
kinds assail me. If I were to give the rein freely to my \ 
speculations, I know not whither they would lead me — 5, 
most likely into a kind of Pyrrhonism which would give [ 
great offence to this dogmatising age. I am not here j 
referring to religious topics, on which I should never think \ 
of addressing the public ; besides that, on these my mind t 
is pretty well settled, though not in opinions which would j^ 
be approved ; but I have in view many points relating to I, 
morals and the conduct of life, on which 1 am much more |i 
convinced that error generally prevails, than prepared to ^ 
pronounce what is truth or reason. I am a little disposed j 
to envy those who can adopt a sect or party and stick by, g 
it with unfaltering allegiance. Such people know at least h 
what to wish for, what to aim at, what to praise or blame, |; 
what and whom to love and to hate. With me it is quite •> 
the contrary. I remain suspended and neutral amid the 
unceasing clash of parties and principles which rages 
around me. I listen to both or to all sides till I can take 
part with none, and I fold my arms in indolence for want 



TO THE KEY. DE. CHAINING. 307 

of knowing anything to be done which might not just as 
well, or better, be let alone. Can you prescribe any re- 
medy for a state like this, which I am disposed to regard 
as a morbid one, because one sees that if it were to become 
epidemic, the whole world would go to sleep ? 

Events press fast upon us. Since I began this letter, 
a few days only ago, a split of the cabinet has been an- 
nounced on the important question of the appropriation 
of the temporalities of the Irish Church. Mr. Stanley 
and two more, who insisted on preserving the whole to the 
Protestant establishment, go out, and we may conse- 
quently expect to see the cause of Church Eeform espoused 
by the government. In this I do unfeignedly rejoice. It 
gives some reason to hope that a compromise may be 
effected with the English Dissenters also, which will 
divert them, for a time at least, from seeking the utter 
overthrow of the establishment. But much will depend 
on what cannot well be reckoned on, the prudence and 
moderation of our upper house, especially the lords 
spiritual. There are sinister reports concerning the sanity 
of our poor well-meaning king. A regency, with a tory 
queen at its head, might prove under present circum- 
stances a dangerous incident. Political unions are said 
to be spreading over the country, or rather trades' unions, 
which, on the slightest cause of jealousy given by the 
government, would immediately become political ones. I 
should exceedingly dread to see more power fall into the 
hands of the low and ignorant, the selfish, and, on the 
whole, not moral classes, of whom these associations are 
composed ; and nothing can preserve us from this peril but 
a wise, j ust, and liberal, but moderate administration. After 
I all, though I have been murmuring at the swamping of 
; literature between religion and politics, I feel that I cannot 
1 myself resist the influence of circumstances. We are in a 

i X2 



308 LETTEES 

state of revolution, it cannot be denied, and however one 
may wish to divert one's mind from the present and, 
the directly practical, it will not be ; and those who do 
not pretend to be able to instruct the public on the great 
questions of Church and State (and I am sure I do not); 
must be content, as matters stand, to hear, see, and say 
nothing. I am reading: a long and a great work, Sismon- 
di's ' History of the Italian Eepublics.' It errs somewhat 
on the side of minute detail, as might well be expected, : 
considering that the author' had occasion to take for his 
authorities the native historians — those masters of prolixity. ' 
But with this abatement the work is surely a very noble one, 
full of interesting circumstances, and lively, graphic de- 
scriptions, both of places from personal knowledge, and of 
characters and incidents. The moral tone is admirable. 
The author seems to me unerringly faithful to the best 
interests of mankind, except that he perhaps prizes a little 
too highly the turbulent liberty of Florence ; fertile, how- 
ever, it must be owned, in great men in every Hne. I ; 
am told that Sismondi's ' History of France ' is, however, 
his best work ; and if I do not set myself to wiiting, I 
think my next task may be to read it. History never tires 
me. 

Pray make Dr. Tuckerman tell you a great deal about 
all us, especially ask him about my friend Mrs. Coltman, ^ 
in whom he delights, and then figure to yourself how you ; 
will enjoy finding yourself surrounded by such disciples 
(for all this set are your disciples, and have received your 
friends in your name). 

An unpleasant suspicion comes over me that I have 
been inditing a vastly dull epistle, pray excuse it if so it 
be. There will be better and worse in letters as in other 
things ; there is a happiness in topics and expressions 
not to be commanded, and if my letter be good for 
nothing else, let it at least serve to assm-e you of my con- 



I TO THE EEV. DR. CHANNING. 309 

I 

jtinued esteem and friendship, and my anxiety to keep up 

jmy privilege of communication with you. 

I Ever most truly yours, 

L. AlKIN. 

I No. 27. 

Hampstead: June 19, 1834. 

Mr. Phillips offers me conveyance for a letter to you, 
and though rather pressed for time, I will begin : at least 
I may be able to thank you for your last admirable letter 
and to convey my sense of its contents. I am very much 
enlightened as well as pleased by your remarks on your 
own country. WTiat very curiously corroborates their 
justness is, that the characteristics which you note as of 
presbyterian origin are, or were, almost equally observable 
here in the Scotch and the old English dissenters — the 
same coldness and reserve of manner — the same repression 
of enthusiasm — the same caution, and mutual superin- 
tendence, I have been struck with in them ever since I 
have been able largely to compare them with our epis- 
copalians. Miss Martineau, being herself of dissenting 
parentage and connection, will be fully prepared to find 
warm hearts under cold manners, but even our sauciest 
travellers bear ample testimony to the hospitality they 
find amongst you. Do you know I am half inclined to 
quarrel with you for calling us foreigners with respect to 
you. T think we never call you so. Our common origin, 
common language, and common history down to a period 
not yet beyond the memory of man, forbid the use of that 
chilling word — pray leave it off. 

I think you quite right in the main respecting our 
religious state. There is, however, a great deal of earnest 
belief amongst our Evangelicals in and out of the Church, 
and a good deal of unobtrusive piety amongst individuals 



310 LETTEES 



of all communions, and I would say that tlie warm re- p 
ception your works have found from persons in as well 
as out of the establishment is a strong proof that spiri- 
tual religion is congenial with many minds. In the fc 
meantime the present struggle between the Church and f 
the dissenters must be regarded as partaking more of the 1 
nature of a civil than a religious contest. The question f 
is, Shall the Church-monopoly be suffered longer to exist 
in all its rigour, or shall it be made to yield more or less ^ 
to the spirit of the age, and the demands of justice ? You 
will see that the bill for abolishing subscriptions at the 
universities as a condition of graduation, has been carried 
by a great majority in the commons, being supported by i: 
most of the Scotch and Irish members. It is probable '< 
that the lords will throw it out, but it will nevertheless be t 
a great triumph to the dissenters to find the representatives \ 
of the people so decidedly in their favour. The question i 
of the appropriation of tithes in Ireland particularly, wiU f 
next come to be discussed; and should the two houses |o 
form opposite decisions on this question likewise, very i- 
long and very important political consequences may, Tnust 
be the result. The establishment is by no means so i 
willing as you have been led to believe to correct its own j 
abuses. It is highly probable that Brougham's Church 
Bill will also be lost among the lords spiritual and ' 
temporal. It will, unless a salutary fear of provoking 
one knows not what should seize upon these noble and 
right reverend personages. I am surprised at daily proofs 
of an alienation of the minds of men from the Church, for 
which, as you know, I was not in the least prepared. In 
no one county, town, or city have the friends of the 
establishment ventured to call a public meeting for the 
purpose of raising the cry of ' The Church in danger.' The 
blustering of Oxford with its military chancellor has failed 
to excite emulation. I believe that if the Church is to 



TO THE REV. DE. CHANNING. 311 

stand, great concessions must be made, not only on the 
points of pluralities, sinecures, and non-residence, but in 
the matter of church patronage. The Scotch General 
Assembly has found it expedient to allow the parishioners 
at large a negative on the appointment of the patron, and 
I look daily for some similar claim here. Now all these 
may be regarded as tendencies towards what is called the 
* voluntary ' church system, which I have no doubt you 
will allow to be much more favourable to spirituality 
than an establishment dependent chiefly on the crown and 
the hereditary aristocracy of the country. 

You will gather from all this that I conceive the 
popular interest to be fast gaining ground, and that I 
believe it must finally carry every point in contest, whether 
civil or ecclesiastical. I believe also that important 
reforms will thus be effected, and the well-being of the 
people at large promoted. Nevertheless, I cannot exult 
in the tone of national feeling. I fear we do indeed 
deserve to be reproached as a nation of shop-keepers — all 
our quarrels are money quarrels — every question in high 
debate may be resolved into one of £. s. d. Ask the 
trade-unions what they require? Higher wages. The 
shop-keepers? The repeal of the assessed taxes. The 
manufacturers ? Free trade, especially in corn. The 
landed interest ? The continuance of the corn laws, and 
of all others favourable to the maintenance of their rents. 
Now this universal worship of Mammon makes me sigh 
and blush for my country. In the first political struggles 
I can remember great and noble principles were at stake ; 
now it is a vulgar dispute who shall pay most, or least 
rather, towards a long reckoning. Fox was the type of 
the former period, Joseph Hume of the present. But 
looking at the causes of this extraordinary activity of the 
mercenary principle amongst us, I am willing to believe 
that they are in great measure of a temporary nature. 



312 LETTERS 

The taxes have pressed with crushing weight on every ■; 
class and interest by turns. It was the hope of relief from : 
pecuniary distress principally which has brought the ; 
people into collision first with the borough-owners, now 
with the tithe-owners. Some burdens have been already : 
lightened by our reformed legislature, but the court and 
the tories still resist retrenchment, and it is necessary 
that even a clamour for it should still be kept up. But 
let reforms in expenditure once have been carried fairly 
through all departments, and this extraordinary pressure 
removed, and the active spirits of our people will demand -, 
higher and better occupation. Then shall we find the i 
great results of the illumination of the popular mind which 
has been all this time proceeding with a constantly ac- \ 
celerating pace ; then expect from us moralists, poets, : 
philosophers. I will tell you a little anecdote which has. f 
made me hope highly of the effects of the diffusion of \ 
literature amongst the lower classes. Dear Jane Roscoe, 
whose head is all benevolence, having accidentally dis- [ 
covered that various cruel practices prevailed amongst 
the market people at Liverpool, caused a committee of 
ladies to be sanctioned by the mayor for the prevention i 
of these offences- It then occurred to her, that to go to \ 
the root of the evil the market people themselves should l: 
be humanised by knowledge, and she got a society insti- 
tuted by ladies for supplying them with a circulation of 
books. Soon after, the wife of a small butcher requested 
of her, on the part of her husband, a second view of one 
of the volumes : ' He says, madam, that they say the tracts 
the gentlefolks give us poor people to read are books for 
children, but that he is sure this is a book for a man, and 
such a book as he never saw the like of ; and never any- 
thing did delight him so much, he can talk of nothing 
else.' It was ' Paradise Lost.' 

The Archbishop of Dublin (\STiately) is doing much 



TO THE EEY. DE. CHAKNING. 313 



j good by reconciling the Catholics to the national schools, 
.' from the system of which he has banished everything 
I offensive to their religion. * To be sure,' said an old 
' Oxford colleague of his to me, ' he is the very opposite of 

I the sort of person I should have chosen for the situation ; 

I I would have had a man remarkable for mildness, patience, 
I willing to hear and to answer all objections; but Grod 
! knows better how to appoint His own instruments. I 
I know many people who, if the archbishop were to be 
I roasted, would go to get a bit of him, because he has 
I yielded to the Catholics respecting giving children the 

whole Bible. But he goes on, and he could not care less 
for abuse if he were made of wood. He says of the 
Sabbath, " Spend if you please, or if you can, the whole 
day in religious exercises, but put things on the true 
footing; do not tell your children it was instituted by 
God's command to Moses to commemorate the creation, 
but tell them it was fixed by the Apostles to commemorate 
the resurrection. Grive it all the sanctity you please, but 
not on a wrong ground." This has given great offence. 
So has a very learned and philosophical work in which, by 
tracing the origin of many Eomish superstitions to the 
principles or the weaknesses of our common nature, he 
has been charged by some with extenuating them.' He 
added, that the archbishop had a great fondness for 
parables in conversation, which were often rather homely 
ones, and for experiments. One day at a great set dinner 
at the lord lieutenant's, a question arose, how long a man 
could live with his head under water. The archbishop 
quitted the room, and presently returned with a great 
bason full of water, which he set on the table and plunged 
his head in before the whole company. Having held it 
there an enormous length of time, he drew it out, crying, 
* There ! none of you could have kept your heads in so 
long, but I know the method of it.' Another time, also 



314 



LETTERS 



at a formal party at the Castle, he spoke of the gi-eat 
weight a man could support on the calf of his leg, bending 
it outwards, ^f your Grace of Cashel,' said he, 'will 
stand upon mine, as I stretch it out, I can bear your 
weight without the slightest difficulty.' But his Grace of 
Cashel would not have done so odd a thing in that 
company for millions. I take a fancy to a metropolitan 
who dares to be odd, to conciliate the Irish Catholics, and 
to provoke the saints, alias bigots. No, I shall not go 
back to Edward III., never fear. No black-letter docu- 
ments for me. But I am not yet the nearer to finding 
work for my pen. I do want a noble subject, and I cannot 
find one in our history after exhausting Charles I. I am 
in a thoroughly unfixed state of mind, which begins to feel 
irksome to me. This whole London season I have been 
much in society, and I have seen so many and such 
various people, and have put myself in the way of hearing 
such various opinions, that I feel as if I had been on an 
excursion with the Diable Boiteux; that is, I seem a 
spectator of all things, inclined to be satisfied with that 
indolent amusement, and to take part in nothing. I 
suppose there is a limit to the benefit of hearing all sides. 
La Fontaine came at last to the two maxims that, Every- 
thing may be true, and that everybody has reason on his 
side. With such notions I do not see how anyone could 
write eloquently, or indeed give himself the trouble to 
write anything at all, but tales and fables to divert idle 
people. If my letter is to go to-day, as it ought, I must 
not fill up my corners as usual, but despatch this hasty 
scrawl, in which you will find, I believe, some things con- 
tradictory of my former views of things, an inconvenience 
not to be avoided when every day developes popular 
feelings more and more. 

Believe me ever with true esteem. 

Your attached friend, 

LucT AiKiy. 



TO THE KEY. DR. CHANNING. 315 



No. 28. 



Hampstead : Oct. 19, 1834. 

My dear Friend- -Your welcome letter arrived as I was 
actually putting pen to paper to enquire after you, and 
Ipetition to be written to. Thank you very much for the 
interest you take in the employment of my pen, and your 
suggestions on this subject. My own inclination is like- 
wise to essay- writing ; but I feel diffident, well knowing it 
to be a difficult and an exhausting kind of composition. 
Sometimes I have thought the form of dialogue a conve- 
nient one for exhibiting the different sides and bearings 
of a subject, and I have lately made one or two attempts 
in this kind, and shall perhaps proceed a little further. I 
think at least I have made up my mind not to search 
further for a historic subject. But I am again impeded 
in my pursuits by a failure in health, and am not able to 
apply much force of mind to any object. I read, however, 
much and variously, and seek to lay in ideas for more 
propitious seasons — should such be in store for me. It 
would be a great undertaking to 'teach this age to 
understand itself; ' one ought first to be very certain of its 
being understood by the teacher. That spirit of aristocracy 
of which you speak, is of itself one of the most perplexing 
and, at the same time, important subjects of meditation 
and enquiry that I know, especially with reference to 
these times and this country. I have not only thought 
and conversed, but even made several attempts at writing 
I on it, without being able to come at all near to the end, 
j or the bottom of it. Is it true, I have asked, as some 
; people say, that the English have more of this spirit than 
j any people in Europe ? Certainly not, if by the terms it 
I is meant that the distinction of noble and plebeian families 



316 LETTERS 

is broadest here. We have, in effect, no noblesse in the 
sense of old France or present Grermany. Only the head 
of any family is a nobleman ; the younger branches are all * 
commoners, and do not even retain a titular distinction 
beyond the first generation from a peer. Yet there is f 
some reason to assert that haughtiness of demeanour towards 
inferiors acknowledged -as such, and still more, an extreme 
jealousy of rank and precedence, and an indignant rebut- 
ting of the pretensions of those a very little below them- 
selves, are striking characteristics of our people. And why 
is this ? I believe because there never was a country or a 
state of society in which men were so much the artificers, 
not only of their own fortunes, but of their own rank, as 
modern England. Every advantage, every distinction, is 
held forth to be struggled for. Each is striving to surpass 
his neighbour, and still more to be acknowledged by his 
neighbour himself to have surpassed him. It has been a 
frequent remark with our essay- writers and novelists, that 
persons of real rank and gentility were much less arrogant 
than pretenders or upstarts, which is likely enough to be 
true as a general rule. But in this land of merchants, 
manufacturers, men of science, men of letters, orators, 
preachers, politicans, and dandies, you may easily imagine 
that there are^hundreds of pretenders and upstarts, or at J 
least of men who have raised themselves, for one person 
of established, acknowledged hereditary rank, fortune, and 
consequence ; and thus perhaps, in some degree, have arro- 
gance and insolence become unfortunately almost national 
characteristics, at least this seems likely to be the solution 
of the fact, if fact it be. \Mien you reflect upon the 
activity of all these various competitors for the respect 
or admiration of society, as well as its more tangible 
prizes, you will perhaps better understand the grounds 
of what little partiality I may feel towards the old aris- 
tocracy, the claims_ of which sometimes act as a useful 



TO THE EEV. DE. CHANNING. 317 

counterbalance to other claims not better founded, and 
; urged with more offensive self-sufficiency. But the ten- 
jdency of our political state is to diminish all kinds of 
! personal preeminence, a tendency of which, as you are 
I aware, the associating spirit is both effect and cause. The 
1 diffusion of knowledge is in some respects to all the 
I aristocracy of this age, what the discovery of gunpowder 
I was to the military aristocracy of one age, and the Ee- 
i formation to the ecclesiastical aristocracy of another. As 
for the trades' unions, I had absolutely forgotten that ever 
I had been afraid of them. It is now manifest that they 
cannot become political unions. They are not, as you 
seem to suppose, combinations generally of the poor 
against the rich, but of one particular class, the journey- 
men mechanics, against all the rest of society beneath 
and around, as much as above themselves. The un- 
reasonable attempt of this class to enhance the price of 
theii' commodity, skilled labour, would if successful cause 
a general advance in the money value of all other com- 
modities, which, by disabling our manufacturers from 
maintaining their ascendency in foreign markets, must 
bring poverty on the journeymen themselves in the first 
place, and then on the nation. This is so clearly perceived, 
that they have found no sympathy anywhere, and the 
delusion amongst themselves is subsiding, or will subside. 
You may be right that we shall have no religious reform, 
but I tliink we must have various Church alterations 
before long. In Scotland, which has now first become 
a free country, and is likely enough to give the tone to 
England on several topics, the seceders have lately in- 
creased prodigiously : and it is not on doctrine that they 
depart from their Church, but on what they call the 
voluntary principle, that is, that the minister should be 
elected by those who are to attend upon him, and paid 
by them alone. The refusal of vestries to impose church 



318 LETTERS 

rates, whicli is becoming general, proceeds on the same 
principle. In this trial of strength, or at least of numbers, 
between the Church and Dissenters, the Church, which is 
almost synonymous with the tory party, has been on the 
whole signally defeated. Even Church congregations 
begin to kick at patronage. Just now, a populous and 
respectable London parish, on losing its rector, sent a 
deputation to the Bishop of London, the patron, which 
took the novel liberty of requesting him to appoint a 
particular clergyman, unconnected with the parish, whom ] 
they named. The bishop replied that, in that case they, ' 
not himself, would be the patrons, which he did not intend 
to permit, and so sent them off malcontent. Tithe must be 
abolished forthwith in Ireland, and must, I conceive, be 
much modified here. Now, though these be in themselves , 
secular matters, they indicate in the middle classes an ^ 
hostility to ecclesiastics and their authority and interests 
which cannot be without its influence on religion itself, at ( 
least on the public exercise of it. The Evangelicals have f 
not made a conquest of the whole people, far from it, as ■ 
the defeat of their Sabbath Bill by the representatives of 
the people abundantly proves. Those, too, whom they 
have not subjugated they have vehemently provoked by 
their sourness and their spirit of dictation and exclusion, 
and I see great reason to believe that a large proportion f 
of those who now unite with the serious party against r 
the Church, would equally oppose giving either additional ^ 
wealth or power to them. J 

It strikes me also as unlikely in itself, that ecclesiastics ^ 
should escape being losers by that tendency to the 
levelling of all personal distinctions which I have already 
noted as belonging to this age. Their authority is more 
immediately dependent on public opinion than any other. 
It may seem an obvious remark, yet I know not that 
anyone has made it, and observed its bearings, that the 



TO THE REV. DR. CHANNING. 319 

necessity and value of oral instruction of every kind is, 
jand must be, exceedingly diminished by the vast extension 
|now given to the art of reading, and the circulation of 
!l)ooks. A well-read layman, even of a humble class, will 
be little inclined to bow to the mere authority of a pulpit. 
Unless, therefore, some man of genius should arise to 
promulgate some new system peculiarly adapted to the 
tastes, the feelings, and the wants of this age and people, 
11 prognosticate a period of religious indifference, and wide- 
jspread disbelief. Even from the lighter literature of the 
day, one may infer the rising of a different spirit from that 
which, not five years ago, prompted all candidates for po- 
pular applause to mix up something of piety with every 
tour, every novel, every song, and every sonnet. I doubt 
if ' Sacred Annuals ' will long continue in vogue. ' May 
religion,' I once heard a devout man say, ' be always in 
honour, and never in fashion.' Whatever has been in 
fashion will soon be out of fashion. Now in this land 
religion has been for a good while in fashion. The mode 
is changing. How I run on, as if I wanted to practise 
essay-writing upon you ! 

As to a history of England for your daughter, there is 
none for anybody's daughter. Hume is still the only very 
agreeable one, and his deficiencies and partialities you 
well know. Lingard is biassed by his profession and 
religion ; and Turner is warped by systems and crotchets. 
However, they all deserve to be read, and out of them the 
careful reader may pick a history. What Hallam has 
given us both in his ' Middle Ages,' and his ' Constitutional 
History ' is of inestimable value to the student, but too 
deep, and too technical for young ladies. There is a 
' History of G-reat Britain,' by a Dr. Andrews, a Scotchman, 
which I read with great pleasure in my youth. It is 
written on the plan of giving in separate chapters the 
civil history of a reign, then the ecclesiastical, then the 



320 LETTERS 

history of commerce, of literature, of manners, &c. There is I 
no great merit in the style, which is flat and commonplace, ji 
and the first chapter on manners is rendered strangely t 
absurd by his deriving those of the ancient Caledonians t 
from Macpherson's fabulous Ossian ; but in spite of these f 
deductions, it is a valuable and agreeable work for the \ 
early periods. It stops at either the death of Henry VIII. i 
or the accession of Elizabeth. I have not seen the work 
for years, and later ones, Turner's especially, may have 
gone deeper into the topics of manners and literature ; but 
I suspect it first opened my mind to those uses of history 
which produced my own works in this kind, and I there- 
fore owe it a good word. 

You tell me nothing of your own plans or pursuits. I 
fear you are not coming over to England for the winter, 
as we had all been hoping — which is very shabby in you. 
We shall but just be able to forgive you should another 
report prove true, as I trust it is, that you are writing a 
book. That will be some compensation, but indeed you 
must not give up the dear project of coming hither, and 
introducing your young people to English society. Eecol- 
lect what you have sometimes written to me on the advan- 
tage of your best people coming and making themselves 
known here. I shall make diligent enquiry after Bryant, 
whom I long to see. Poets are rare with us. Coleridge 
we have lost, and where have we his poetic equal ? Of 
which of his contemporaries can we say that he has written 
too little ? 

Will you think me outrageously sentimental if I confess 
to you that I have deplored even with tears the confla- 
gration of our two Houses of Parliament, rich as they were 
in historic recollections ? The name of Pym was still to 
be seen cut over the place which he occupied in the House 
of Commons, the Armada tapestry still lined the House of 
Lords. St. Stephen's chapel was built by our third 



TO THE REV. DR. CHANNING. 321 

Edward. In the Painted Chamber James and Charles used 
;to lecture their sturdy houses of commons — and all are 
{now ashes and ruins ! We must be thankful that West- 
i minster Hall itself did not share the same fate. There 
jwas great manifestation of feeling amongst the spectators 
I of every rank. With all our faults as a nation, few of us 
I are without a touch of filial love for old England, and 
pride in the memory of her glories. How absurd to call 
your mob tories ! I trust your whigs will defeat them. 
There can be no fear of your lower classes not having 
power enough. 

With every good wish for you and yours, and particu- 
larly that you would give us the opportunity of showing 
you hospitality. 

Believe me, yours with true regard, 

L. AlKIN. 



No. 29. 

Hampstead: March 10, 1835. 
Avaunt! carpenters, bricklayers, gardeners, painters, 
and upholsterers ; and let me hold converse with my dear 
distant friend. These people whom I exorcise are em- 
ployed, be it known to you, in preparing for my reception 
a house to which I hope to remove very shortly ; but this 
being Sunday, they and I enjoy a respite. It is no long 
flight, only to the opposite side of the street ; but it will 
give me, besides better rooms, a delicious prospect from 
my windows. Thirty miles of varied and verdant country, 
sprinkled only with white houses, and bounded by the 
range of Surrey hills. This will be a new pleasure to 
me; I shall scarcely feel my solitude in the presence 
of so much of nature, and I do promise myself that, in the 
intervals of gazing through my window, my pen will exert 
itself to better purpose than heretofore. 



322 LETTERS 

All that you say on the subject of dialogue I think just. 
The chief advantage of that form is not in conveying 
information, for which it has many inconveniences, but 
in representing discussion, and thus prompting the reader : 
to exercise his own powers of reasoning and judging. It: 
will serve to hint subjects of enquiry which it may not bes 
convenient to treat more openly ; and it may save a writer) 
from hostile criticism, by enabling him to plead that heH 
has represented both sides of a question without pro-f- 
nouncing for either. Call these paltry utilities if you> 
please, but amongst a people where ancient prejudice is 
hugged by the million, the best friends of man's best 
interests may be thankful to take advantage of them. 
At present, however, I have scarcely made a beginning of = 
my work; that is, I have got only one dialogue and a^ 
half, and some scraps which I think will hatch into essays, i 
But of this enough. I have had by me for some time a" 
message for you from a prince (but, thought I, I shan't ' 
write purely for that ; the republican doctor will laugh at 
me). This prince, however, is a man of merit ; it is the 
Duke of Sussex. At a dinner which he gave some time' 
since to the Fellows of the Royal Society, of which he is 
President, and a few others, he beckoned to him my" 
brother Arthur, to talk aside on the topic that he loves — 
religion. He spoke with delight of your sermons — said 
he had read every one that was printed. He had heard 
(would it were true I) that you were coming to England in^ 
the spring. ^I understand,' he added, 'that your sister 
corresponds often with him ; tell her that when he comes 
I shall think it a great honour to be introduced to him. ^ 
Will notliing tempt you to come to us ? Surely, after the 
illness you have had, you would find travelling a restorative, 
and should you not like, ' antiquam exquaerere matrem,' ^ 
to make your own researches in Dorsetshire ? Meantime 
I shall not lose sight of the object. 



TO THE EEV. DR. CHANNINa. 323 

The first time I can get sight of Joseph Hunter of the 
I Eecord Office, our first living topographer, one of our first 
j genealogists, and withal a York student and Unitarian 
! divine, I will mention the subject ; and I dare say he can at 
least inform us how information can be gotten. It happens 
that I know absolutely not a person in that county. But 
you are Cannings, you say, and if so, I am afraid you must 
be content to take, along with the eminent statesman, a 
certain Bet Canning, who, about the middle of last century, 
contrived to make herself the talk of the whole kingdom by 
a well-invented tale of having been carried off and kept 
prisoner in a lone house near London, from which she made 
a marvellous escape. The particulars might be found in an 
old * Annual Register ' if you are curious ; but perhaps you 
are not. I believe she is mentioned (either in the ' World ' 
or * Connoisseur ') as the rival of a certain Mrs. Tofts, who 
professed to have brought into the world — a litter of 
rabbits. 

Talking of pedigrees, I think I never told you that I 
saw, too late for my book, one of Queen Elizabeth, kept 
at Hatfield House, and certainly drawn under the eye of 
Burleigh, in which she is traced up to a personage called 
'the second wife of Jupiter,' and collaterally, to no less a 
worthy than Cerberus himself; whence, no doubt, her 
habitual vigilance and occasional doggedness. 

I quite agree with you as to the prose merits of our 
lake poets. Southey is an excellent prose man. The 
first circumstance which tended to redeem style from the 
cold regularity of the French school, and the pedantic 
latinism of ^Johnson, was the appearance of Percy's 
Reliques ; from that time, and by the help also of the true 
elucidators of Shakespeare, Steevens, Malone, &c., old true 
English has been understood and written by all our writers 
of genius. There is no better English than that of poor 
Charles Lamb — a true and original genius — the delight of 

y 2 



324 LETTERS 

all who knew, still more than of all who read him, and ' 
whom none who had once seen him — my own case — could . 
ever forget. Your praise of Artevelde I cannot quite ; 
agree in. The energetic simplicity and purity of the style, j 
indeed, I much admire, but I cannot say that his person- i 
ages do strike or interest me greatly. But I may be 
biassed. The detestableness of everything relating to the [ 
depraved creature whom he has made the heroine of his 
second part — the unspeakable coarseness and vileness of j. 
the man who is represented as running a long parallel , 
between her and the virtuous wife whom he has loved and 
lost — these things we women could not bear or pass over. 
We have made no outcry, however, but our silent indig- 
nation has been felt. I thought his criticisms on Byron 
able, and to a certain degree just, but invidious. Byron's ^ 
deficiencies, however great, do not prevent his having in j^ 
some kinds, and in some passages, exhibited merits and J 
beauties of the first order. Mr. Taylor is, I think, some- 
what of a heretic in poetical doctrine, inasmuch as he says 
in company, that he holds Wordsworth for a much greater 
poet than Milton. 

Twelve years ago I saw at Dr. Holland's a man of three- 
and-twenty, tall, rather well looking, with an air of talent, 
promptitude, and moderate self-confidence. He was the i 
son of a clever gentleman-farmer, and just arrived from 
Northumberland to seek his fortune in I^ondon, bearing a 
letter of introduction from excellent Mr. Turner of New- 
castle, his father's friend. Within three days, Wilmot 
Horton, then colonial secretary, said to Dr. Holland, 
' These lords' sons do no good in our office, I wish you 
could recommend me a young man who would be willing ^ 
to work.' The doctor mentioned the young Northumbrian ; 
he was examined, approved, and immediately installed 
in a lucrative situation, which he still retains — and this 
was Henry Taylor. He printed some years ago a tragedy, 



TO THE RET. DK. C FANNING. 325 

which had no circulation. He was often at Coleridge's 
evening parties, and long ago I heard of his provoking 
some of the company by an invidious eulogium on the 
'Koran. They were the more angry because he possessed 
ithe slight advantage in argument, of being the only 
iperson present who had read the book. I think, or hope, 
ithat he will yet write things worthy of ungrudging praise ; 
!and I much approve his manly style, as an antidote to the 
I sentimental jargon of which we have so much; but he 
•must cultivate moral refinement, to give pleasure where 
,he must wish to please. Above all, he must never again 
make his hero exclaim, ^ How little flattering is a woman's 
love ! ' 

Almost two great pages without a word of politics ! 
Not that they are not the object of interest at present; 
but what to think ! what to remark or to predict ! In 
the first place, however, I am not surprised at anything 
that has happened. I always thought it likely that the 
tories would make some effort to reinstate themselves in 
what they have so long regarded as their birthright — the 
government of the country, with all the advantages, 
privileges, and emoluments thereunto belonging. Some- 
thing like treachery on the part of the king was also 
highly probable, considering the natural antagonism be- 
tween royalty and whiggism. But in all this / see nothing 
alarming. With such a House of Commons as the present 
proves itself to be, in spite of the utmost efforts of the 
tories, who scrupled nothing of corruption, or intimidation 
either, to pack it to their minds — reforms we must and 
shall have, and effectual ones too. It is, I believe, not 
amiss, that every step of amelioration should be won with 
I some effort and struggle. Every reform is the more 
I valued, as well as the better understood, for being the 
result and reward of long agitation. We might therefore 
afford to have patience with the reluctance of ministers 



326 LETTERS 

to proceed in the road which after all they must travel, 
were delay the only evil of the case. But I confess I feel 
hurt at the restoration to power of a party which I 
regard as essentially that of injustice and abuse — a party 
which in its best measures must always be open to the 
reproach of acting inconsistently with its own principles. 
Surely its reign will not be long. It is hazardous, how- 
ever, to predict in circumstances unprecedented. A 
ministry outvoted in the Lower House, and an opposition 
outvoted in the Upper, is a new dilemma in the history 
of our mixed constitution. It is the opinion of wise men 
and friends of religious as well as civil liberty, that great 
part of all the reaction that there has been against reform 
has arisen from the rash declarations of certain classes of 
dissenters against an established church. They egregiously 
ndscalculated their strength if they supposed that the 
Church could, yet at least, be outvoted, and the natural 
result of their vehemence has been that of rousing the 
clergy to tenfold fierceness against all sectaries and all 
liberals. There may be some chance, however, that 
ultimately the sacred order will find itself to have sus- 
tained irreparable injury, in lay opinion, by the exhibitions 
of its temper, and its maxims which have thus been drawn 
forth. I stand by my belief, that no form of religion in 
this country is extending, if preserving its authority over 
the minds of men. 

You may be interested to hear that Brougham, like 
Cicero in his banishment, flies for support under political 
disappointments to the study of philosophy. He wrote the 
other day, to an old and respected friend of his and mine, 
to send him the works of Tucker, the answer printed, but 
not published, by Milne to Mackintosh's attack on 
Bentham, and several other books on ethical subjects. 
Will you charge yourself with my cordial thanks to Dr. 
Tuckerman for his ordination sermon and his pamphlet, 



TO THE KEY. DE. CHANNING. 327 

from which I am glad to learn that his noble experiment 
proceeds and prospers ? Your charge ' has very much 
delighted us all. One point, however, I want to discuss 
with you. It is the opinion given by both you and Dr. 
T., that, as well with you as in Europe, it is the tendency 
of modern improvements to increase the distance between 
the upper and lower classes. Now, with respect to your 
own country, it seems to stand to reason that it must be 
so ; because you are beginning, and but beginning, to have 
a class horn rich, and also because parts of your country 
are become densely peopled, and of course the wages of 
labour no longer there bear the same high proportion to 
the necessaries of life. But I doubt whether there is this 
tendency in any of the kingdoms of Europe, and here I 
discern more signs of an opposite one. I grant, indeed, 
that in some districts over-population, combined with 
neglect of the wholesome old law that no cottage should 
be built without a considerable garden attached, has de- 
pressed the condition of the agricultural labourer, but 
this effect is partial, and affects only the cultivators. In 
towns, wages were never, I believe, so high in proportion 
to the price of the articles of consumption ; and never was 
education so widely diffused, never were the people so 
experimentally convinced of the great truth that knowledge 
is power. On the other hand, several circumstances have 
combined to bring down our aristocracy. The depressed 
state of agriculture has shorn down their incomes so low, 
that to pay the interest of their mortgages is more than 
most of them know how to compass. The reform bill has 
deprived them of the great resources in money and pre- 
ferments, civil and ecclesiastical, which they used to derive 
from their borough interests, and places and sinecures are 
much diminished. In the mercantile class it is certain 
that much fewer great fortunes, and many more moderate 
ones are made by trade now than some years ago. I 



328 LETTERS 

throw out these hints hastily, but you will know how to 
put them together. I must now conclude. 

Ever yoiirs most truly, 

L. AlKIN. 

No. 30. 

London : May 13, 1835. 
My dear Friend — Mr. Phillips shall not return to you 
without at least a few lines from me, and I take up the 
pen in London, and amid many distractions. 

See if I was not riorht ! The tories are out aofain. The 
will of the king put them in, the will of the House of 
Commons has nevertheless turned them out. Still our 
state is not altogether satisfactory ; it is evident that severe 
and perhaps dangerous party struggles await us. I wanted 
to tell you — but when I wrote last had little heart to 
mention politics at all — that I think you simplify too 
much in your views of our state. It seems that you think 
we have but two parties, that of reform and that of abuse ; 
but we have twenty, besides infinite shades of opinion, 
and there are pure patriots and corrupt and selfish de- 
signers in all. You will perceive that this must be so, 
when you consider that now, as in the days of the Stuarts, 
religion, or at least theology, mingles in the fray, and 
sects make factions. More to embroil the scene, we have 
persons who desire reform in the Church and not in the 
State — the case of numbers of the Evangelicals ; others, 
ultra-radicals, who in new modelling the State would 
destroy the Church. The champions of civil liberty are 
compelled to fraternise with rank Irish papists, who have 
perhaps for their ultimate object the separation of their 
country from ours, and the establishment of their own 
church. These are but a few of the perplexing com- 
binations of elements naturally discordant which we see 



TO THE REV. DR. CHANNING. 329 

! 

taking place around us. There is much in our moral 
world to remind one of the old theory of the formation of 
jthe physical world by a dance of atoms and their fortuitous 
''concourse; but as yet we have not risen out of chaos — the 
order and beauty are all to come. I found the other day 
in that most original work Tucker's ' Light of Nature,' the 
startling remark, that few people know what their own 
I real opinions are ; and I have since felt the truth of it, by 
I reflecting on the backward and forward talking of almost 
! all one's acquaintance — excepting those who have tangible 
■ interests involved in questions at issue. One day you 
find a man a decided reformer, the next day he becomes 
conservative, then he appears fixed in whiggism — till the 
next turning of the vane. Now the love of novelty, now 
the force of old associations, becomes predominant: Hope, 
Fear, and Memory play their busy part, and fixed 
principles are found scarcely anywhere. I speak the more 
feelingly on this head because the case is very much my 
own. The ultras of all the parties inspire me with re- 
pugnance, and perhaps fear ; but there is a wide middle 
space which with me is land debatable, and through which 
I pick out an uncertain course. In theory I find it im- 
possible to controvert the principle, that the will of the 
majority ought to prevail; but when I reflect on the 
blindness, the ignorance, the gross selfishness of that 
majority — that headlong multitude — I cannot but wish 
that it would be content to submit to the guidance of a 
wise and disinterested few ; but then how are these few to 
be discovered and invested with power, and how are they 
to be preserved from being corrupted by it ? 

After all, I believe our people areimprovingin knowledge 
and in virtue under the discipline of these struggles, and 
this ought to reconcile our minds to the inevitable evils 
attending them. 
, Kead, pray read, Wordsworth's new volume of poems. 



330 LETTERS 

You will there see how the dread of innovation has acted- 
on a mind of no ordinary powers of reflection, not warped:( 
either by any immediate self-interest, but perhaps we may- 
say, dominated by poetical associations with old castles, 
cathedral service, and village steeples. As a poet, I 
think he rather advances than declines ; for though not a,- 
few of his new pieces appear to me failures, none of them j 
have the puerility into which he used so often to fall, and' 
there are some which I esteem of surpassing excellence. 
What a treasure of original thouo:hts, and sublime and 
touching imagery, and exquisite harmonies is his ode 
' On the Power of Sound ! ' 

Montgomery has likewise given us a new volume. It 
has some very striking narrative poems, and many fine 
stanzas ; but how is his strain marred by his devotedness ! 
to a monstrous system of religion ! I cannot easily 
understand how a mind so benevolent as his should have 
found the peace he says he has under his tremendous 
belief: but is it not true that there are some secret con- 
trivances by which the worthy mind escapes from the 
consequences of shocking theories which it believes itself 
to admit, and thus secures the serenity which is virtue's 
right ? Thanks for your sermon on war. I am not suffi- 
ciently informed of the facts of the case in your dispute |f 
with the French to be able fully to appreciate the weight 
of your arguments ; but I trust that, after all, your President 
will not find it necessary to carry his threats into execution. 
I believe the genius of civilised nations is becoming less f 
and less warlike. 

Last night I saw Mr. Hunter, and asked how we could 
get any answer to your erquiries respecting your family. 
He said that he thought it very likely Channings were 
Cannings, and that the only gentle Cannings whom the 
heralds had been able to discover were seated in Oxford- 
shire — that Greorge Canning's Irish family was perhaps a 



TO THE HEV. DR. CHANNING. 33 1 

Ibranch of it. If the Dorsetshire Channings were people 
of a certain consequence, some notice of them might be 
jextant in Hutchins's ' History of Dorsetshire ' — if not, the 
only course would be to make enquiries of some Cranbourne 
I person, if the name was still known there. But I think 
yet I shall be able to find something out by other means. 
I must here bring my epistle to a conclusion. 

Ever most truly yours, 

L. AlKIN. 

No. 31. 

Hampstead: Sept. 13, 1835. 

My dear Friend— Your welcome and long expected 
letter arrived a few days since, just as I had begun one 
to enquire what had occasioned so long a suspension of our 
correspondence. I cannot account for the long delay of 
mine, unless by the supposition that it must have waited 
long at Dr. Boott's for an opportunity of sending it. I 
have certainly written you one since — by Mr. Phillips, 
surely — which I hope you have received. English and 
American will, I suppose, in process of time, become 
distinct languages, at least as to familiar idioms. When I 
told you that the workmen were preparing a new house for 
me, you understood that I was building one : an English- 
man would have understood only that I was changing 
my house — which was the fact. My present dwelling 
would be regarded as a venerable relic of antiquity in 
your country. I dare say it has much more than a century 
on its head, though it is still strong and in good condition. 
Thanks to the remission of taxes since the reform bill, and 
of rates since the amendment of the poor laws, I have 
now a much better house than formerly for about the 
same money. Pray do not grudge yourself your healthful 
exhilarating only luxury. I know how deeply you both 



332 LETTERS 

understand and feel the claims of the poor on their more 
prosperous brethren, the beautiful sermon you last sent 
me is a striking proof of it ; but depend upon it you are 
doing more for them, and for the world at large, by 
keeping yourself in spirits and vigour, than by any amount 
of money you could bestow in deeds of charity. Not to 
mention that by giving employment to the industrious, 
we are often putting money to its most philanthropic use. 
You lament the fetters placed by custom upon the free 
energies of virtue, and most assuredly there are those 
whose own sense of the good and the beautiful would far 
excel any agency from without, both as motive and 
restraint. But are not those fitted, as well as * content to 
dwell in decencies for ever,' — that is, the mass of mankind 
— the better, do you think, for the habit of submitting to 
restraint ? If they had more free agency, would they not 
rather stray into absiudity, or lose themselves in reckless- P 
ness, than rise to any higher notions of excellence ? But ? 
in how many different forms are the questions continually f 
recurring — When to take off the leading strings or ^vhen ^ 
to remove the fetters ? All the questions of internal policy 
which have been and are still shaking our state to its : 
very foundations, may be resolved into these, and even. ! 
where the restraint is one which has most manifestly 
originated in nothing but the prevalence of might over 
right, it is often held a point for grave consideration, how 
speedily, or how entirely it is wise to take it off. With 
us there are many who hold that the ' Voluntary Church 
System,' though best in itself, would not yet be best for 
the English people. Our tories were loth to allow that 
dissenters, papists. Irishmen, and negro slaves ought yet 
to be free from their wholesome restrictions, and the other 
day our House of Lords decided that a few links of chain 
ought still to remain around town councils. At the 
bottom of my heart I have a persuasion that the generous 



TO THE REV. DR. CHANNING. 333 

and especially the disinterested are the advocates of the 
earliest and the most complete emancipation ; and my 
sympathies go with them ; but then the alarmists and the 
weighers of expediency come round one with so many 
plausibilities, that I often, on particular points, become 
staggered at least, and, if not convinced, I am silenced. 

I With respect to our country, however, I am entirely of 
opinion that the when is the only question. The popular 

I cause has already gained victories which must lead to 
further and full success; unless, indeed, the reformers 
should offend the characteristic moderation and prudence 
of the nation by some strange ebullitions^ — hardly to be 
apprehended. The detection of this widely spread con- 
spiracy to overpower a reformed ministry and liberal 
House of Commons, on the part of the Orange Association, 
headed by that disgrace to human nature, the Duke of 
Cumberland — shared in by many principal tory peers, and 
diffused widely through every rank in the army— is in 
every way a fortunate event. Its result must be, I think, 
to bring upon its knees to the people a faction which 
might have continued to be very formidable, had it not 
rendered itself detestable, and by its dark machinations 
brought itself within the danger of the laws. There can 
be no doubt that Cumberland's aim was to make himself 
the head of a party strong enough to place him on the 
throne, to the exclusion of his niece — a mad design, indeed, 
unless he believed the whole people to be enamoured of 
the character of Caligula. He has been driven from the 
country, never I trust to pollute its soil again, and his 
principal abettors will not, I suppose, choose to abide the 
proceedings of the attorney-general. These are strange 
events, and of absorbing interest to those before whose 
eyes they pass. You have well traced out to me the cir- 
cumstances which are exerting the chief influence at 
present over your national character. No ! with you 



334 LETTEES j 

politics cannot now be the ruling interest. Your fathers 
have won for you the unmolested enjoyment of the 
greatest inheritance upon earth ; you have now to explore, : 
improve, and enjoy it. You are destined to the good and ' 
the ill of a state of unexampled prosperity — unless the slave 
question be preparing a division of your federal union, i 
with all the formidable results which would plainly be 
inevitable. To adjust the balance of moral good and evil 
in the causes which act largely on the character and{ 
manners of a nation, is probably a task beyond human ; 
power. All that the most enlightened philanthropy can • 
perhaps wisely attempt, is to lean against the prevalent i 
vices of the time, and cherish its virtues. At all times in : 
all countries advanced in the arts of life, there must be ' 
abundant scope for the preacher or the philosopher to cry ^ 
aloud, ' Be not conformed to the world ; ' be not immersed ii 
in matter ; forget not the invisible, which alone is real and i 
permanent ! Long has your voice been heard, and much } 
longer may it yet be heard, sounding these great warnings f 
in the ears of men, and impressing on their hearts truths !i 
of the highest order. For myself, all my exertions are i- 
confined to the forming of projects, destined very probably t 
never to be executed. During several months I have found i 
myself in a state of languor which reminded me of the t 
knight, in I forget what tale of chivalry, who had drunk t 
unwittingly of the unnerving fountain, and lay stretched ( 
upon the grass, lost to all deeds or even thoughts of 
' chivalrous emprize,' and unable to lift the spear or 
sustain the burden of his crested helm. I ascribe this 
listlessness partly to a very weak state of health aggravated 
by the unusual heat of the season, which is now happily 
abated, and partly to the deep impression made upon my 
spirits by very melancholy circumstances affecting those 
whom I dearly love. I think I must have mentioned 
before that Mr. was tried by severe sickness in his 



TO THE REY. DR. CHANNINa. 335 

family. He has now two lovely daughters in confirmed 
Ideclines, and one of them in the very last stage of this 
;dreadful and hopeless disease. This last sweet creature, 
I who has just attained the age of one-and-twenty, has one 
,of the noblest, yet softest minds I have known — one of 
Ithe finest, purest, and least earthly spirits. She long 
|sufi'ered her father and sisters to believe that she was 
ignorant of her state : at length she confessed that for 
months she had been fully aware of its hopelessness, and 
since that avowal she has at once wrung their hearts with 
grief, and warmed them with admiration by a bright 
manifestation of the treasures of her soul. ' In observing 
the state of her mind,' wrote her father to me, 'I rejoice 
with trembling ; the question constantly recurring to me 
— Is it possible this can hold out to the end ? Such firm 
composui'e — such a calm contemplation of her approaching 
I departure — such confiding trust in the power and fatherly 
goodness of God — all this is more than could be anticipated 
even from her.' In this situation, which has now endured 
about three months, your writings have been her constant 
solace and support. Everything I had of yours which she 
was not before acquainted with, I have sent to her. Her 
father's last account, too, has this passage: 'She said 
yesterday she should have liked to be under the observa- 
tion of Dr. Channing, and speculated upon the nature of 
the advice he would have pressed upon her, in her present 
state ; whether he would not have considered her im- 
patient under her trial — not sufficiently disposed to bear, 
as well as to do, the will of Grod.' I had written to her, 
that you were full of cheerful views under a dangerous 
illness some time since, and she begged I would send her 
an extract from a letter of yours, describing your feelings. 

This account I could not forbear giving you. Poor will 

be released, in all human probabilty, long before this letter 
can reach you, or I should have asked some little message 



336 LETTERS 

for her ; but perhaps you will give me a few words in ^ 
your next for the heart-broken father and his other dear 
sufferer, also of a most angelic sweetness and goodness,^ 
and quite devoted to the service of the sister still more 
oppressed with illness than herself. But let me quit this 
melancholy subject. You have read, or you must read, g 
' Mackintosh's Memoirs ' by his son (not the life prefixed 
to his historic fragment). It will certainly interest you p 
in many ways, though I think you will agree with me 
that the impression on the whole is rather a painful one. 
Mackintosh, with all the ambition of his countrymen, had 
neither the frugality, nor the steady industry, by means 
of which a Scotchman usually climbs to fortune or to 
power. I am inclined also to beheve, that his abilities 
were overrated, or at least wrongly rated, by himself and 
many of his friends, especially in the beginning of his 
career. Hence his life offers the history of little else than ^ 
abortive attempts and half-executed designs. The wide , 
range of his reading, the promptness as well as the ac- , 
curacy of his memory and his power of just and sententious r 
remark, gave so much power to his conversation — render- ^ 
ing it in fact so like a clever book — that the hearer in- 
voluntarily gave him credit for more than he in fact t 
possessed of the powers of a fine writer ; as a debater in [ 
parliament' he had no talent, and even his set speeches j 
were delivered to half-empty benches. His highest efforts, r 
in whatever line, went just so far as to prove that he was 
all hut a man of genius. He had attained self-knowledge ^ 
when he said that his true vocation was that of a professor - 
in a college ; but to this his ambition and his passion for ; 
shining in London society, made him disdain to confine 
himself. Coleridge's ' Table-talk ' is full of strange and i 
rash opinions. I believe it to be neither an impartial nor »• 
an intelligent report of his sentiments — and yet a man ^ 
with his habits might often talk wildly enough : you will [ 



j TO THE EEY. DR. CHAINING. 337 

'find the book worth looking through, however. The 

! second volume improves upon the first, and some of the 

, literary remarks seem to me both fine and just. If I find 

I myself gaining strength, and able to write without great 

, fatigue, I will not neglect your kind request to write often 

! and fully. 

i I have not yet seen the Ticknors, but am to do so on 

I their return to London next month. 

I Ever believe me, with the greatest truth, 

I Your obliged and affectionate friend, 

' L. AlKIN. 

No. 32. 

Hampstead: Jan. 17, 1836. 

My dear Friend — I will not wait for your acknowledg- 

I ment of my last letter to write again, knowing by expe- 

I rience how long my letters, committed by Dr. Boott to 

private hands, have often been in reaching you, and more 

than suspecting by your silence respecting them, that two 

or three have never reached you 

In literature, by much the most considerable publication 
since I wrote last is Joanna Baillie's three volumes of 
dramas, which you will no doubt see. She tells me that 
her OAvn favourite is ^Witchcraft,' and I think that it 
perhaps goes deeper into human nature than any of the 
rest. But I nevertheless prefer her tragedies in verse, 
and ' Henriquez,' and still more ' Separation ' charms me. 
All these new dramas being of the domestic kind, neces- 
sarily fall short of the majesty of ' Ethel wald' and of 
' Constantino,' but I think they have as much or more of 
pathos than her former ones, and not less of poetry ; and 
in the arrangement of the plots and other points of 
dramatic skill, she has improved very considerably. To 
those who know her well, the value of all she writes is 



338 LETTERS 

incalculably increased by its affording so perfect an image \ 
of lier own pure, benignant, and ingenuous spirit. Her^ 
character, more, I think, than any I have ever known, ^ 
deserves to be called a heavenly one ; and when I think of , 
it in conjunction with her rare genius, I can scarcely help . 
rea:ardino: her as a beino; of a hio^her order. . 

Never in my life has reading been so constantly, almost r 
so incessantly, the business of my life. My state of health f 
confines me very much to th« house ; of society I have [ 
but little, yet the time very seldom indeed hangs heavy, , 
for I can always lose myself in a book. My pen is seldom 
in use ; I am too much cut off from opportunities of in- • 
forming myself by conversation, too unable to run about 
in search of documents, to pursue any kind of historical 
enquiries, and it is but now and then that a subject for a 
brief essay or dialogue occurs to me. Perhaps indolence r, 
grows upon me ; it is the natural companion of a mono- 
tonous and solitary life, in temperaments not irritable 
and not enthusiastic ; and unless improving health should 
hereafter enable me, as I am still in hopes it may, to apply 
the stimulus of change of scene and company, I believe 
I must be content to allow myself to be numbered with 
those that U'ere, by all but a few dear friends and relations. 
You will find me but a dull correspondent I fear — but a 
very grateful one ever for the pleasure and the benefit of 
your letters. I will trust mine no more to the preca- 
riousness of private hands, for I am quite sure that several 
proofs of my punctuality, if of nothing more valuable, 
have not reached you. 

You have sometimes been inclined, I think, to reproach 
us wdth the miserable state of a large portion of om' popu- 
lation, especially the congregated poor of our cities. I 
am happy to acquaint you that this great evil is rapidly 
diminishing. Never were manufactures, arts, and com- 
merce in such a state of activity amongst us. An extra- 



TO THE EEY. DE. CHANNING. 339 

ordinary impulse seems to have been given to everything ; 
whence derived in the first instance, I know not. Man- 
chester daily puffs forth fresh volumes of black smoke 
from more and more huge steam-engines. She invites all 
agricultural labourers who want work to come to her, and 
! sets them down instantly to spin and to weave. Norwich, 
which I have known from my childhood as the melancholy 
j seat of decaying manufactures and redundant population, 
j has not now one able-bodied man on the parish books, 
! and twice within six months the doors of her empty jail 
' have stood wide open, for forty-eight hours each time. 
I Our new poor-laws have happily cooperated with this 
state of things to raise the moral tone amongst the poor, 
by compelling them to rely more on their own exertions. 
With the outward prosperity of this class, there can be no 
doubt that their desire of giving school -learning to their 
children will go on increasing. The difficulties of estab- 
lishing a national system of education I believe to be 
insurmountable in this country of religious divisions, but 
I think the object is likely to be on the whole better 
accomplished by the efforts of the labouring classes them- 
selves, aided by the voluntary exertions of the benevolent 
and enlightened working on their own plans and within 
the limits of their respective religious societies. I appre- 
hend that some kind of parish provision for the wretched 
poor of Ireland will be established in the coming session 
of parliament ; but there also religious divisions formidably 
obstruct almost every plan for the general benefit. There 
is, and must be in a Protestant government, a reluctance 
to entrust large funds for the support of the poor to the 
management of the ignorant, and bigoted, and furious 
popish priests of Ireland ; yet they are indisputably better 
acquainted with the necessities of the people than any 
other persons, and the want of a middle class, consisting 
of substantial farmers and decent tradesmen, in almost all 

z 2 



340 LETTERS 

the agricultural districts, seems to point them out as the 
only qualified dispensers of parish relief. I like to state 
to you such facts as these, that you may not underrate 
the difficulties or the efforts of our statesmen, amongst 
whom I believe that there is at present much wisdom and 
a very pure love of the public good. In a new country, or -. 
under a despotism, a general system may be laid down, ; 
and carried into effect with little or no modification ; but 
here, hampered by ancient usages and inveterate pre- 
judices amongst the people, compelled on all sides to 
respect vested rights, and yield to powers of resistance in p 
bodies and in individuals, an administration can do no 
more than apply partial remedies to inconveniences, and - 
carry plans and principles into a modified and restricted ■ 
execution. There is, however, this great compensating . 
advantage, that no changes can be made by any other ^: 
power than that of public opinion, deliberately formed and , 
strongly pronounced ; and that a habit of discussion is thus ,, 
formed and preserved by which one cannot but hope that . 
much truth important to human happiness will continue 
to be elicited ; especially as reasonings on practical ;j 
questions of government and political economy are here 
continually made the subject of actual experiment. 

We have all been sympathising with the sufferers in the 
conflagration at New York — one of the greatest, I should i- 
think, within memory ; and we have felt for them the more, ^ 
on account of the spirit and energy with which they have , 
set themselves to repair their losses by their own exertions, 
which have been surely admirable, and quite in accordance 
with your national character. 

Winter is dealing rather severely with us, and I fear 
with you likewise. I shall be happy to learn that you 
have not been a sufferer in health by it. 

Pray believe me ever yours most truly, 

L. AiEix. 



TO THE KEY. DR. CHAINING. 341 



No. 33. 



Hampstead: June 12, 1836. 
This is indeed an awakener to my conscience ! A second 
kind and delightful letter from you, whilst an answer to 
the first is still lying half-written in my desk, where it has 
remained untouched, I believe, a full month ! 
I My only excuse is one which I rejoice that you had not 
I to plead — an unusual severity and continuance of illness 
land debility, and perhaps an indolent disinclination to 
exert the little power which I still possess. But away 
j with such impediments ; I will make mind victorious for 
once over body! Your account of Harriet Martineau 
gives me great pleasure. I rejoice that her remarkable and 
I fearless sincerity has been rightly appreciated among you ; 
it sometimes made me fear for her in London, but there 
also what friends she made she kept. No doubt she will 
write a book about you, but I entirely agree with you that 
travellers always see imperfectly, and with a bias. Never- 
theless, I should like you to look at Von Kaumer's account 
of us. I believe him to be upright and sincere, and he 
gave me the idea of an industrious, and zealous, and rather 
able man of letters. The curious thing is, the coolness 
with which he takes for granted that Prussia is much 
further advanced than England in the science of legislation 
and government, as well as in the arts of music, painting, 
and sculpture ; and the patronising tone with which he 
honours us on these matters, doing homage, however, to 
our surpassing wealth and luxury. It is true that Prussia 
may boast of a national system of education which imparts 
the rudiments of several kinds of knowledge, and of 
singing and playing to all ; and that they have advanced 
so far as to put all religions on the same footing, not only 
with regard to civil rights, but to state endowments. Yet 



342 LETTEKS 

I believe we shall not be brought to look up to any des- 
potism, however mildly or prudently administered. ; 

Grermany is a country which now interests me much l 
more than France, though I am struck with your ideas { 
respecting the means now at work for her improvement, t 
and I shall rejoice to see them verified; but to us Grer- I 
many is of more importance. It is a school in which : 
numbers of our young men are learning lessons, the results t 
of which are Hkely, unless I mistake, strongly to influence ■ 
religious feelings, rather perhaps than religious opinions, 
amongst us. One of these gentlemen, now about thirty, : 
poured out his whole heart to me on these subjects the . 
other day, taking me, I believe, to be the only female 
relation he had who could understand, or would bear with, [ 
him. He had returned some years ago from a first visit i 
to Germany, resolute not to fulfil his destination to the t 
English church. A second residence has only confirmed - 
him in his abhorrence of creeds and articles, and admira- 
tion of the freedom of a G-erman university, where all j 
varieties of opinion are represented by one professor or ■ 
another, and the students may attend whichever they 
please. He seemed to me devout as well as sincere. The 
cheap and simple life led by the inJmbitants of Munich, 
where he has also found an agreeable circle of lettered 
and polished society, delighted him much. He will pro- 
bably return to it, at least for a season; but, in the 
meantime, he is connected with a set of young Germanized 
Englishmen who write in a new British and Foreign 
Eeview, and are labouring to instil their free opinions 
into our public. 

Full time it is now that I should thank you for your 
introduction of your nephew and his family. My illness, 
indeed, lias prevented my seeing the mother and son more 
than once, when they paid me too short a visit, and your 
niece I have not seen, but I was verv much struck and 



TO THE REV. DE. CHANNING. 343 

pleased with Mr. Channing. He instantly revived my 

recollection of you, which was in itself a great merit in 

him ; but I can well perceive that he has much besides. 

His manners are such as no teaching could give, they are 

evidently the emanation of a noble and elegant mind. 

I was particularly struck with the candour he evinced 

in all his judgments, and the fine tact manifested in all he 

said and did. I congratulate you with my whole heart 

j on possessing such a relation, and such a friend and asso- 

! ciate as I am sure he must prove to you. I hope for one 

^ more glimpse of them before they finally quit London. 

' Ah ! why will you not come yourself? 

I am all but a prisoner to my house and little garden. 
I am a miserable walker, and unable to bear without 
injury the motion of a carriage even for a short drive. I 
accommodate myself, however, to my circumstances better 
than I could have anticipated. Whilst I have books 
always, and the sight of friends sometimes, I find life more 
than bearable. The only thought which sits heavy on my 
mind is that of my own inutility. Alas ! what important 
end of existence do I fulfil ? To whom is it of any real 
consequence whether or not I continue to fill a place in 
the world ? I hope only that involuntary uselessness will 
not be imputed, and that we may say, ' They also serve 
who only stand and wait.' The thing I find chiefly to be 
guarded against is indolence, or the habit of filling up time 
i with trifling occupations which unfit the mind for any 
I strenuous effort. I own myself guilty this way ; I promise 
to amend — but how difficult to ifnake motives for exer- 
tions ! A necessarian would say, impossible. The thought 
of necessarians brings me back to that system of Hartley 
which you dielike so much. Surely it must be wrong to 
trace human character or human actions to any single 
principle, whether that of association or any other, for we 
cannot well help observing in ourselves the operation of a 



344 LETTEES 

great complication of causes. But yet I suppose you \ 
would admit that there is not one of our active principles \ 
which is not strongly influenced by the power of associa- ] 
tion. How then do you limit its sway? The more I i 
reflect upon the formation of human character, the more [ 
impracticable I feel it to reduce the facts to any general » 
rule. It seems as if the doctrine of association had been : 
employed by the French philosophers to represent that i 
chance to which they were willing to ascribe everything. . 
But the pious Hartley no doubt believed ' All chance 
direction which we cannot see.' Still I never could un- \ 
derstand how his system was really compatible with moral 
responsibility — with the sense of human actions which 
God himself has surely implanted in our souls. I do not 
wonder that Mackintosh struggled so hard to find a middle 
way between two systems which appear each of them false [ 
and each of them true, according to the side on which \ 
they are viewed. This is all very crude, I am sensible, but 
I want to strike a light out of you if I may. 

Pray believe me J 

Ever most truly yours, \ 

L. iViKIN. 

Xo. 34. 

Hampstead: Dee. 10, 1836. [ 
My dear Friend — Will you, or not, regard it as a pallia- 
tion of my shameful deficiencies as a correspondent, that 
I have had in my paper-case for above two months a 
letter to you half-finished, which I have never found 
resolution to complete ? The fact was, that I had there 
entered into some political speculations, the soimdness of 
which I began to distrust as soon as I saw them on paper. 
I said to myself, ' Let them wait till I see more of the 
course of events in Ireland.' And thus they remained till 



TO THE BEV. DB. CHANNINO. 345 

1 

' a few days since, when I finally condemned them. Wiser 
' people, and much more skilful politicians than I, have 
i been as much perplexed to know what to expect, or even 
I what to wish, for that luckless country. It seems to me 
I that all the really puzzling questions in public morals, as 
I in private, arise from having previously gone wrong. The 
straight line is generally obvious enough to those who 
have never quitted it, but hard to be distinguished by such 
i as having deviated, are anxious to return to it by the 
i nearest way. This is what one feels about the Protestant 
' establishment in Ireland. The wrong step was to set it 
' up whilst the majority of the people were papists ; but to 
give to that abominable superstition the triumph of seeing 
it now at length pulled down again, goes very much 
against one's feelings, and all one's better hopes for 
mankind. Still worse would it be to see the reestablish- 
ment of popery, which seems to be aimed at by O'Connell 
and his red-hot followers. Meantime, there is unmingied 
satisfaction in observing the equal justice which is now 
administered there between men of the two religions, and 
the means taken to civilise their fierce manners, and to 
relieve their wants. Should this system be steadily pur- 
sued for some time longer, it may so mollify angry spirits 
as to render an equitable adjustment very feasible. 

The warmest wish which my heart now forms for my 
country is the cessation of the vehement party struggles 
which have agitated us so long. To say nothing of the 
interruption of old friendships and of the comfort of general 
society which they occasion, they occupy many of the 
ablest heads, and most accomplished characters, to the 
exclusion of objects of higher, because more extensive and 
permanent, importance. Literature, as you well know, is 
in an unsatisfactory state amongst us. By writers it is 
too much regarded as a mere trade ; by readers as one 
only of the contrivances for filling up the vacant spaces of 



346 LETTERS 

life ; like dancing, singing, or sight-seeing. But we may « 
live to see a change. I have lately been paying a good t! 
deal of attention to the literature of the time of William ) 
and Anne ; and it is cheering to observe what an impulse | 
was given to it by that revolution which, like the one in 
which we are now living, was peaceable, and carried in 
favour of freedom, by appeals to the reason, the best 
feelings and the true interests of Englishmen. 

Pray read, as I am doing, the ' Literary Eemains ' of 
Coleridge. In one passage he denounces with such in- 
dignant scorn those readers who presume to intimate that 
an author does not understand himself, when it is only 
that their stupid or ignorant minds are incapable of 
understanding him, that I certainly dare not intimate any 
such suspicion regarding him. I will only say that he 
has very many passages which pass my comprehension : 
some indeed, which are quite too deep in scholarship for 
me ; others which I do comprehend, but which seem to 
me exceedingly absurd ; others, again, which have more 
of the philosopher, and more of the poet, than we can 
hope from any one of our living writers with whom I am 
acquainted. His native proneness to the mystical seems 
to have received added force from his study of the German 
philosophy ; but from that deep I often perceive that 
pearls are dra^\Ti up. I have frequently wished myself a 
diver in it. I feel, as I know you do, the ' flat, stale, and 
unprofitable ' of our utilitarianism in everything. It rejoices 
my spirit when Coleridge launches a thunderbolt at that 
clay idol of our universities — Paley. As to his assaults 
upon unitarianism, I do not suppose they will much either 
irritate or alarm you. He is a perfect enthusiast for the 
Trinity, and especially for the doctrine of the fall of man. 
Of the last he says, that it is not only inconceivable to 
him how it should be true, but that it should be true : 
but that it is his conscience tells him so. As if a man 



TO THE KEY. DR. CHANNI^'G. 347 

should say, I know I am a beggar, and that convinces me 

that my great grandfather must have had a fine estate and 

forfeited it for treason. Next to these grand mysteries, 

he seems to cherish the notion that the genius of Shak- 

speare was actually superhuman; and he approaches an 

i apparently absurd or immoral passage in his writings 

i with full as much awe as a text of scripture — the plenary 

j inspiration of which, by the way, he strenuously denies. 

j Yet his lecture, on English literature, and particularly his 

remarks on Shakspeare, are full of deep thought, exquisite 

discrimination, profound sensibility, and brilliant and 

truly poetical illustration. It is a great pity that, as he 

delivered them almost entirely without notes, we have 

them only in the imperfect memoranda taken down by his 

hearers. They were perfectly dazzling as he delivered 

them. I was so fortunate as to hear two of them, almost 

thirty years ago. 

I have not yet seen Miss Martineau, though several 
notes have passed between us relative to the memorial of 
English authors to your legislature concerning coypright. 
Mr. Farrar says the business would have been more likely 
to succeed if our government had interposed by its 
minister, and so I think too ; doubting a little whether 
Harriet's interest at Washington will prove as powerful as 
she imagines — but the effort seems at least not likely to 
injure the cause, which is surely a just one. There will 
be, I hope, a good deal of curiosity to see our friend's 
book ; but, unluckily, we have been inundated with books 
on America, and it will be difficult for her to find unpre- 
occupied ground. The slavery question is a rock in her 
way which will require wariness. Our public may think 
that we have purchased a right not to have our feelings 
further tortured with details of negro suffering. She 
will regard herself as addressing, perhaps equally, both 
sides of the water — for she seems to have left at least half 



348 LETTERS 

her heart behind her — and this, I conceive, will make a 
difficulty. Miss Tuckerman paid me a short visit the 
other day, and left me desirous of seeing more of her. 
There is the stamp of something noble upon her, as indeed 
might be expected of her father's daughter. 

With me time passes — as I believe it never does with 
you — heavily, languidly. I read and read, but can fix 
my mind to no pursuit, and my pen is quite idle. It 
might seem strange to say I am idle because I am alone, 
and yet I verily believe this to be the case. Under the 
perpetual misfortune of domestic solitude, I find it im- 
possible to raise my spirits to the tone necessary for 
composition ; idleness re-acts on my spirits, and unless I 
can make to myself, or circumstances should make for 
me, some kind of stimulus, this unsatisfactory state may 
continue to the end. Change of scene would be a grand 
medicine to my mind, but unfortunately travelling dis- 
agrees exceedingly with my health. ^NTiy do I trouble you 
with all this ? I believe in excuse for a dull letter, or 
else from the pardonable wish of gaining a little sympathy. 

Again my letter has suffered an interruption of many 
days. The melancholy of the last paragraph was, I 
believe, the gathering of a fit of illness. It is now dis- 
persed, and I am going to enjoy myself at a friend's house 
in London, where much good company is to be met. I 
shall have the opportunity of asking Mr. Hallam when he 
intends to give us his history of the literature of (I think) 
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, which I am im- 
patient to see. Just now I am reading — what indeed I 
have often read before, but the changes in our own 
sentiments often make an old book seem new to us — the 
great epic of Tasso. I never admired this noble work so 
much, and I am now wishing to see a critique worthy of 
it by some modern hand. The division of the poetry of 
Europe, since the revival of letters, into the classical and 



i TO THE REV. DR. CHANNING. 349 

j the romantic, is, I think, a good one ; but it would be hard 
I to say which school may best lay claim to Tasso ; their 
j respective shares seem balanced to a grain, reckoning, that 
is, by the number of lines which seem to belong to each. 
j As to the value of the respective parts, the case is very 
j different. From the ancients, Virgil in particular, he has 
; servilely translated many passages and transferred some 
■ whole incidents ; what is in the romantic style is full of 
I life and interest, and, so far as I know, of originality. In 
I one part he appears only the elegant scholar and versifier ; 
I in the other, the great poet. Had he not, from melan- 
choly and distrust of himself, submitted his work to 
the tyranny and pedantry of classical critics, I cannot but 
think he would have given us an epic all romantic, 
and all worthy of his genius, which was not less fertile 
than graceful. How unaccountable it is that he should 
everywhere call the Mahomedans pagans, so intimately 
as Moors and Saracens were then known all over Italy. 
Did ever religious animosity so mistake the matter as 
when Italian papists reproached Mussulmans with idolatry ! 
Ariosto misstates this matter as much as Tasso. I live 
upon the old masterpieces ; lately I treated myself with 
the reperusal of ' Don Quixote,' which Coleridge, by the 
way, has very admirably and eloquently characterised. 
You are a great optimist ; but will you give me any hopes 
that we shall ever see greater, or so great, works of genius 
again produced ? The presiding power of this age is the 
steam-engine, and what has that to do with anything 
morally or spiritually great ? 

Pray believe me ever 

Yours, with true regard, 

L. AlKIN. 



350 LETTERS 



No. 35. 



Hampstead: Feb. 12, 1837. ? 

My dear Friend— Many thanks both for your kind letter f 
and for your dedication sermon, in which I found much ^ 
to interest me, although the general strain of sentiment ^ 
is, as indeed it could not but be, very similar to what you 
had before expressed. I was much pleased with your 
biographical notice at the end of it. Here I reckon 
myself upon my own ground, and I entirely agree with ^ 
you that ' no department of literature is so false.' Give 
us more of these sketches of your old worthies ; this must [ 
bear to the mind of every reader the stamp of truth and 
resemblance, and the manner in which its subject dealt ^ 
with his horrible system was very original and remarkable, 
and much worth recording. I formerly heard, from the 
lips of a large and free thinker, this problem : — Suppose 
that it were necessary, in order to carrying into effect f 
the system which should produce the greatest amount of 
good upon the whole to the human race, that a few indi- 
viduals should endure unrequited misery, such as should \ 
make existence to them a preponderance of suffering; 
would you say that it was inconsistent with the justice of 
Grod to adopt that system ? I could find no other answer 
than this : — That if it were believed that there was to be 
even one such victim, as no man could tell that the 
doomed one might not be himself, it would destroy reliance 
upon the justness or goodness of Grod in every mind, and I 
could not believe in an unjust deity. But Dr. Hopkins 
would have said this was a selfish, wicked view of the 
subject. Somewhat a similar conclusion, though from 
very different premises. Mackintosh comes to in one of 
his speculations, where he seems to say that a man ought 
to be contented with believing that the race would go on 



t) 



TO THE EEY. BIX. CHANNING. 351 

indefinitely advancing in knowledge, virtue, and happi- 
ness, and discard the weakness of wishing or hoping that 
his own existence should be continued to be a witness of 
that advancement. But this is too sublime a height of 
virtue for me. After all, the origin of evil is the difficulty ; 
it lies at the bottom of every system, whether of religion 
or philosophy, and by whom has it ever been solved? 
You express curiosity respecting our visible church, and 
want to hear more fully the grounds of my opinion that 
it is in danger, notwithstanding the stout rally apparently 
making in its favour. No doubt the sense of danger has 
called up zealous defenders, and to a small extent a 
coalition may have taken place between the orthodox, that 
is the half-Eomish, and the evangelical, that is the half- 
puritan parties within our establishment. In fact, the 
ritual superstitions of one sect, and the doctrinal super- 
stitions of the other, are not so absolutely incompatible 
but that interest may sometimes reconcile them, and it is 
from no advancement of human reason upon these points 
that I augur ill for the ecclesiastical fabric, but from more 
earthly considerations. 

The spirit of our liturgy, and of our clergy, is basely, 
slavishly loyal. ' Fear God, and honour the King,' are 
injunctions which they have always coupled together as 
equally obligatory and sacred. Now the spirit of this 
age, as I need not tell you, is anything but this. Hence 
a wide and deep ill-will among the numerous classes towards 
the system, and still more towards the men. For proof 
of this, I cite the success which has attended all late 
attempts at abridging the exclusive privileges of the es- 
tablishment. The new registration law, just coming into 
action, takes from the clergy, and without pecimiary 
compensation, the monopoly of performing marriages. It 
likewise adds a universal register of births to the registry 
alone of baptisms performed by the parochial clergy, and 



352 LETTEES 

this too without compensation for probable diminution of 
baptismal fees. 

The imposition of church rates has been so vigorously 
opposed by the advocates of the vohuitary system — com- 
preliending many churchmen, with the whole body of ^ 
Dissenters — that the ministry must aboHsh them. Tithes [ 
in England have probably been saved for the present by 
a commutation ; but High Churchmen, with some reason, 
regard this as placing the revenues of the church on a less 
independent and less secure foundation, making them | 
stipendiaries rather than freeholders. In Ireland the tithe - 
is certainly at its last gasp. The only claim advanced by 
Dissenters in which they have been as yet unsuccessful 
is that of admission to Oxford and Cambridge without a 
declaration of belonging to the establishment ; but it has 
been found necessary to grant power of conferring degrees 
without that condition to an academic body in London, 
and probably the universities will find it their interest 
soon to yield. 

Another awkward circumstance for the church is this. 
The vast increase of our population was natiu-ally judged 
to require an addition to the number of places of worship. 
Parliament under the tories, and with many bitter speeches 
from the opposition, granted large sums for building 
churches, and by the acti\'ity of zealous persons, especially 
the Bishop of London, large subscriptions have since been 
raised for the same purpose. But how to endow the 
officiating ministers, and provide for current expenses, has 
become a greater difficulty than raising the edifices. 
Tithes and other church funds being already appropriated, 
it was necessary to have recom-se to pew rents, and it ap- 
pears as if the children of the establishment, accustomed 
to get their religion gratis, so grudge this payment, that 
the new churches and chapels mostly turn out failures, 
and starve their ministers. A person above this sordidness. 



TO THE RET. DR. CHANNING. 353 

jbut more attached perhaps to the doctrines than the forms 
;or rites of the church, and caring more for the preaching 
I than the prayer-book, is tempted to say however, ' If I pay, 
let me at least pay to a chapel, where I may hear a minister 
I chosen by myself and the rest of the congregation, and 
not forced upon us by the rector or the bishop.' And 
thus it seems as if dissent would gain by the very measures 
I taken to counteract its increase. To call in the voluntary 
principle in 'part is hazardous for an endowed church. 
There has also been a little civil war between a commis- 
sion, chiefly bishops, appointed to attempt some gentle 
reforms in the church, and the deans and chapters, whom 
the pious prelates have defrauded of some patronage, and 
converted to their own benefit. Sydney Smith, that bright 
wit and independent politician who founded the * Edin- 
burgh Eeview,' is one of the aggrieved, and has stated 
their case in a keen pamphlet which unmasks that would- 
be Laud, the Bishop of London, and which — contrary, I 
believe, to the author's intentions — gives a handle to the 
enemies of the hierarchy altogether. These are the signs 
of the times on which I found my auguries ; but very 
much of the fate of the church, as well as state, will depend 
on the event of the renewal of that grand conflict between 
our two houses of legislature which is now imminently 
impending. For my own part, I see indeed many dangers, 
many evils, on both sides of the question ; but I feel my 
heart beating stronger and stronger towards the cause of 
the people ; regarding that cause, however, as what would 
be best promoted by the preservation of our triple form of 
government, with some modification of the authority of the 
peers, and especially with the great improvement of the 
exclusion of the bishops from their house. 

I do not wonder that you regard the kind of religion 
now prevailing here as little fitted to elevate the mind, 
and useful only as a restraint. In fact the currency, 

A A 



354 LETTERS 

whether stamped with the effigies of prelate or heresiarch, 
is of base alloy: but our cabinets contain thousands of 
pure gold medals. The present concern should be to cry 
down the base coin, afterwards we may raise the standard. 
You will see my meaning if you will examine an article 
in the ' Edinburgh Review' on Evangelical preaching. I 
know not who is the author, but I think him on the righti! 
track. It would break my heart to believe that superstition 
and hypocrisy were to hold in perpetual bondage my dear 
and noble country. They must not — will not — shall not !! 
Since I began this letter I have had the pleasure of a 
visit from your friend Mr. Grannett. We seemed acquainted 
at once, and had a long and animated conversation, partly 
on the topics of this letter. I am much pleased with him. 
It is impossible to mistake his sincere devotion to the 
highest and best objects. I hope we shall return him to 
you well recruited for future exertions. In literature I 
have seen nothing lately of much interest, for I have not 
yet seen Mr. Hallam's new work. There is a life of 
Goldsmith, prolix, and in every respect meanly written ; 
the account of his early days, however, is worth reading, as 
a picture of Irish manners about a century ago. Nothing 
is more remarkable than the loose notions of property 
among persons of some education. Those who wanted, 
however much it was their own fault, asked as a matter 
of course, and what is more, received as a matter of course, 
relief from persons whom the same carelessness might 
reduce to beggary to-morrow. It seems that the descrip- 
tion in the ' Deserted Village ' of the exemplary clergyman 
who so freely received all beggars and vagabonds for his 
guests and companions, was a true draught from Irish 
life, such as the poet saw it in his own father's house. 
According to our Irish poor commissioners the same amal- 
gamation seems still to subsist between the begging and the 
farming population, and I apprehend it had its root in 



TO THE REV. DK. CHANNING. 355 

ll 

the old Brehon law, which gave the property of land to 

Ij the whole Se'pt in common, and merely temporary occu- 

j pation to individuals. One might say that the Irish have 

I never owned anything but land, and in that, or its profits, 

I all have regarded themselves as entitled to some share. 

' In this there seems to be some natural justice, but how 

I incompatible with civilised English notions. Poor Grold- 

: smith, with his boundless sympathy and good-nature, and 

thus brought up, became in London a constant prey to 

rapacity and imposture, and when brought to distress, he 

I preyed on others by running in debt to them. His habits 

I of life were far from right and correct ; but still he had 

* a spirit finely touched,' he always served virtue with his 

pen, and his delightful works seem no nearer oblivion 

than when they first appeared. I am glad to see him 

brought again before the public. 

I have heard no more since my last writing concerning 
our Grerman students ; in fact, we are too busy at present 
with practical matters concerning our church and state 
to have much leisure for the speculations of philosophy in 
which the Grermans may freely indulge. I wish we also 
found ourselves too busy to dip into the infamous and 
corrupting novels now so prominent a part of the literature 
of France. You may see that our reviews, under colour 
of reprehending, are exciting curiosity respecting them, 
and I fear they are fast gliding into a half secret circu- 
lation. 

Our whole country has been saddened by a severe epi- 
demic, under the name of influenza, of which many, chiefly 
of the aged and the weakly, have died. It is abating now. 
With me it dealt lightly, and I am now in usual health. 

I rejoice to hear good accounts of your recovered 
strength. 

Believe me ever truly yours, 

Lucy Aikin. 

AA 2 



355 LETTERS 



No. 36. 



Hampstead : April 23, 1837. 

My dear Friend — The very great kindness of your last, ^ 
which I received lately, impels me to answer it speedily, 
though I think you will ere now have had one of mine, 
written in much better spirits than that which so much 
excited your concern for me. Yes, body is to blame, I 
believe, whenever my spirits are depressed without any 
evident cause, for they are usually victorious over all minor 
miseries, and they, like my health, are now recruited. It 
appears that thousands liave been attacked, during our 
long visitation of influenza, with this dejection of mind; 
that in many cases it has formed the leading symptom of - 
the epidemic — so mysteriously do mind and body act and ^ 
react upon each other I This extraordinarily prolonged ^ 
winter has aggravated all our evils, and we are but just' 
beginning to feel a milder air breathing upon us. The face ^ 
of nature is still wintry and dark. Fortunate may those 
account themselves who, like myself, have not been called 
to mourn for any very near and dear ; the mortality has 
been appalling. The weakly, and particularly the aged, 
have been mown dowa. in heaps. Since the plague of 
London, so large a proportion of its population has never 
fallen in a single season. 

Do you enquire what our public is now occupied with ? 
We have forgotten our epidemic, we have waived politics 
for a space, and have been supping full with the horrors of 
a bloody murder. Not that we care so very much for the 
simple circumstance of a man's killing a woman whom he 
pretended to be on the point of marrying ; but to have 
cut ofif her head and limbs afterwards, that is what has 
shocked us above measure. I believe, however, the gene- 
ral feeling is in this instance light, and that, even of the 
persons capable of a cold-blooded mercenary murder, but 



TO THE REV. DR. CITANNING. 357 

jfew could bring themselves to attempt such a mode of 
i disposing of the remains. I should be sorry to see our 
populace cured of all reverence for the shell which has 
once contained a human spirit. In this case, the police 
were obliged to fight hard with the mob, to prevent them 
from tearing to pieces the murderer, and a woman, his 
accomplice. 

Are you aware that the humanity of our rabble is one 
topic of our national boasting. Unlike the French, mobs 
with us never shed the blood of any whom they regard 
as their own political enemies. I am not aware that they 
have massacred since the days of Jack Cade. Then they 
always take the part of the weaker* A man could scarcely 
do anything so dangerous as to treat a child with cruelty 
in the streets of London. Formerly they were unfeeling 
towards the brute creation ; but owing, I think, to two cir- 
cumstances — the diffusion of the taste for natural history 
by Penny Magazines and by the Zoological Grardens, and 
the enactment of penal laws against cruelty to animals — 
a great and admirable change has taken place ; insomuch 
that it is now a protection to cattle to be driven to market 
through the great thoroughfares of the city. I am in- 
clined to think that no evil propensity is so generally 
counteracted by the influence of education as that to 
cruelty — the vice, peculiarly, of the unthinking and the 
uncivilised. In this point, at least, the connection between 
knowledge and virtue is perfectly clear. Would it were 
equally so in many others. 

A strange thing, good sir, that you should have been 
preaching here in Hampstead church, fifty yards from my 
door, without letting me know a word of the matter ! It 
must have been you no doubt, for I am credibly informed 
that a stranger delivered in that pulpit, a few Sundays ago, 
one of Dr. Channing's most admired discourses, changing 
nothing whatever but the text. Yours is a wide cure 
seemingly ! This brings me to what you say of the value 



358 LETTEES 

of a great idea, which gives ' unity to our inward being.', 
You have a great right to speak of what you know so well: 
from happy personal experience. I will add that I regard 
it as the highest privilege of your profession, when em-c 
braced from pure motives and strong con\ictions, that it 
connects by so close a bond the inward and the outward 
life. It is the single care of the good pastor to put his 
most intimate thoughts into all his judgments upon the 
practice of others. From this concentration of his whole 
being, he derives that mighty power which enables him to!j 
wield the minds of men almost at his pleasure. No other" 
class is thus privileged. A physician, for example, may 
overflow with devout feeling in his closet, but when hei 
quits it he must take up studies and occupations quite 
unconnected with religion, which he cannot even intro- « 
duce into his discourse but at the risk of giving offence, v 
or of incurring suspicions. He must not take upon him 
to be weighing the actions and characters of other men in 
the scales of the sanctuary; if he makes them his owni 
standard, he cannot very gracefully proclaim that he does 
so. Hence a kind of complexity in the scheme of life, 
and especially a separation between inward and outward, 
unfavourable to ardour and to strong moral eflfects. The 
same may be said of persons engaged in every other walk 
of active life; but the contemplative and the Hterary, if » 
they are willing at least to live almost out of the world, \ 
may in good measure ennct their own ideaL The ancient \ 
philosophers appear often to have done so, and they also 
were able to form schools of disciples, as were Godwin and i 
Bentham in our own times. But for this, a spirit of dog- 
matism is requisite, with which many neither are nor 
would wish to be inspired. Certainly a g^^eat idea is like 
the faith which could remove mountains, but to think we 
have found a great, and at the same time a new idea, that 
is the difficulty. I o^ni I have as much hope of finding 



TO THE EEY. DE. CHANGING. 359 

i 

jtlie philosopher's stone. Continual reading, if desultory 
jand without a definite object, favours indolence, unsettles 
lopinions, and of course enfeebles the mental and moral 
J energies. Writing, on the contrary, concentrates the 
I thoughts and gives strength to convictions. I feel that 
since I have disused it my mind has become, if I may say 
so, of a thinner consistency. When by chance I turn to 
some passages of my James, or Charles, I am apt to say to 
myself : Surely I was a r}ian when I wi'ote that, who am 
now a mere old woman. This is lamentable enough. I 
wish I dare promise to find a remedy ; perhaps I may, 
j however, for since my health is amended, I feel an appe- 
' tite for labour to which I had long been a stranger. 

As to public affairs, we are all at gaze. Must the whigs 
go out ? Dare the tories come in ? Will the commons 
pass this bill ? Will the lords throw out that ? These 
are the questions which everybody asks, and nobody can 
answer. The king will not let the parliament be dissolved, 
that seems certain ; and parties are so nearly balanced in 
the legislature at present, that neither seems able to do 
more than obstruct the measures of the other. It is like 
a great stoppage of carriages in the street; the people 
who sit fretting in their coaches think it will never be 
over ; but sooner or later some broad-wheeled waggon or 
brewer's dray will move out of the way, and people will 
proceed on their various errands as usual. We are waiting 
for some accident or incident. Meantime all parties are 
much out of humour, in particular the odium theologicitm 
is in high venom. 

Poor Lord Melbourne is half distracted whenever a 
bishop dies, because there is such a difficulty to find whig- 
parsons out of whom to make a new one — that is, such as 
are old and seasoned ; plenty may be had made up in 
haste, on the spur of the occasion, but those are liable to 
warp by change of seasons. The last who died, Bathurst 



360 LETTERS 

of Norwich, still more venerable by his virtues than his I 
ninety-three years, was a true patriot, a fine scholar, a i 
finished gentleman, and what might be called the Chris- i 
tian of every church. Because he believed his own church ; 
the truest and the best, he was anxious to remove all such \ 
bulwarks from about her as tests and subscriptions ; he- 
cause he was a really pious and exemplary man, he dis- 
dained affected rigour and evangelical sourness. I once 
heard him deliver a charge to his clergy, which was the 
best adapted to inspire at once veneration and filial affec- 
tion that could be conceived, and the gracefulness of com- 
position and delivery was inimitable. On being introduced 
to him, I almost wished to beg his blessing. Norwich is 
one of the poorer sees ; and, highly endowed and highly 
connected as Bathurst was, he might have insured a speedy 
translation on the usual terms. But having opposed a 
tory ministry on an important question he said, on return- 
ing from the House of Lords, ' I have lost Winchester, but 
I have satisfied my conscience.' If you look into Lock- 
hart's ^ Life and Correspondence of Scott,' of which one 
volume has appeared, and as many more will appear as 
the public will submit to pay for, you will find an amus- 
ing fragment of an autobiography, comprising enough of 
the early years of this extraordinary man to show dis- 
tinctly the circumstances by which the turn was given to 
his tastes, sentiments, and pursuits. Much of his sickly 
childhood was passed at a farm-house, where his chief 
companions were cattle, and the peasants who tended 
them. His predominant inclination being to hear stories 
in order to tell them, he soon made himself master of all 
the epics of that border country, and hence his heroes are 
always of the moss-trooping order, and his machinery con- 
sists of brownies, kelpies, and fairies. Hence, too, his 
unquenchable animosity against the Southrons. Observe 
how seldom he draws an Englishman but as a coward or a 



TO THE REV. DR. CHANNING. 361 

fool. His vivid fancy, his animal spirits, his good humour 
and habitual kindliness, and his perfect freedom from 
affectation, must be liked, and might be envied ; but the 
furniture of his mind was really made up of trumpery. 
Elevation of sentiment he had certainly none, and philo- 
sophy was far from him as the antipodes. Mr. WHiishaw 
said once, of Bentham, that he was a schoolman born some 
ages too late ; Scott was a stark moss-trooper in the same 
predicament, and a Jacobite. 

Since I began this letter I have been making a reviving 
visit in London, in the midst of kind old friends, liberals, 
and literati. One tone I find pervading all the men of 
deep and sound learning in whatever department, and it is 
what you will not like to hear of. It expresses a full con- 
viction that the attempt to diffuse knowledge by means of 
society tracts and mechanics' institutes began in enthu- 
siasm and proceeds in quackery ; and they deprecate it, 
not in the spirit of aristocracy, but in the name of good 
letters, which they see to be sustaining severe injury by 
the attempt, on every subject, to write down to the dull 
or ignorant. It used to be said of learning in Scotland, 
that ' all had a mouthful, and none a full meal,' and it is 
to be feared that something like this will be the case here ; 
at least so say the croakers. I hold out the consolation 
that the multitude will throw down their books when 
nobody is watching and take up some pastime which suits 
them better ; and then the old distinction of learned and 
unlearned will return. But there is a strange tendency to 
fly from one extreme to another. I perceive that young 
ladies, fatigued with lectures and languages, have fairly 
returned to the stupid cross-stitch works of their great 
grandmothers ; and who knows but they may resume the 
laudable practices of spelling at random, and writing 
from corner to corner. My present occupation is reading 
history ; that of the Eomans occupies me at present. I 



362 LETTEES 

have purposes in this course of study, but no formed plan 
as yet. 

Believe me ever very truly yours, 

L. AlKIN. 

The Duke of Sussex desires I will lend him your last 
sermon. He has been ill, and loves religious reading. 

No. 37. 

Hampstead: Oct. 14, 1837. 
My dear Friend — Your welcome letter, yesterday re- 
ceived, contains matters which will not suffer me to leave 
it a day longer unanswered. Well might you be sorry at 
the tidings that I sympathised in Miss M.'s ideas of the 
sphere of woman ; but if she is in the habit of advancing 
her opinions on no stronger foundations than she has for * 
this, small must be the proportion of truth in them. The f 
facts are these. I saw her a few days after her book came * 
out, when I had only looked in it for half an hour, and ? 
was even ignorant that she had said anything on the f 
subjects of marriage and divorce, on which I hold her >! 
doctrine to be as ignorant, presumptuous, and pernicious 
as possible. With regard to her notions of the political 
rights of women, I certainly hold, and it appears to me 
self-evident that, on the principle that there should never 
be taxation without representation, women who possess .'- 
independent property ought to vote ; but this is more the ( 
American than the English principle. Here it is, or was 
rather, the doctrine that the elective franchise is a trust 
given to some for the good of the whole, and on that 
ground I think the claim of women might be dubious. 
Yet the reform bill, by affixing the elective franchise only, 
and in all cases, to the possession of land, or occupancy oi 
houses of a certain value, tends to suggest the idea that 
a single woman possessing such property as unrestrictedly 



TO THE KEY. DR. CIIAXNING. 363 

as a man, subject to the same taxes, liable even to some 
burdensome, though eligible to no honourable or profitable, 
parish offices, ought in equity to have, and might have 
without harm or danger, a suffrage to give. I vote for 
guardians of the poor of this parish by merely signing a 
paper, why might I not vote thus for members of par- 
liament ? As to the scheme of opening to women profes- 
sions and trades, now exercised only by men, I am totally 
against it, for more reasons than I have time to give. 

But there is more. In a very merry little female circle, 
at the time I mentioned, and I have never seen her since, 
we hailed Harriet as our champion, between joke and 
earnest, and she then told us of the scheme of a periodical 
devoted to the good of the sex, of which she was to be the 
editor. The chief points she then dwelt upon were, the 
sufferings of the most unhappy class of women, and the 
necessity of taking more pains to explain to poor girls at 
school the snares which encompassed them, and the utter 
ruin to which one false step exposed them. In this I 
zealously concurred, ... So far, and only so far, do I 
agree in any opinions peculiarly hers .... I impute 
to her no designed misrepresentations, but she is a 
visionary who, in more senses than one, turns a deaf ear to 
all objections and remonstrances; takes silence for concur- 
rence, and imagines that all who show some friendly 
interest in her must of necessity be her disciples in all the 
force of the term. I, like you, heed little either the 
praise or the censure she gives young people ; but indeed, 
indeed, it is somewhat hard that on her eulogy of American 
good-temper you should found a charge against us of ill- 
temper. Poor stupid John Bull has generally been 
reckoned good-natured at least. But what presumption 
in any individual to speak of the tempers of a whole 
nation ! What false judgment do we often form of those 
of our familiar acquaintances I 



364 LETTERS 

I have no doubt your packet would be exceedingly wel- 
come to his Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex, notwith- 
standing any republican plainness in the address — I conclude - 
you do not direct to Mr. Augustus Gruelph. You say you [ 
do not care enough for our aristocracy to learn their titles, 
and at this I do not wonder. The history of nobility in f 
England is, however, a curious subject, on which an essay 
might be written, and I rather wonder such an one has 
not been written, capable of throwing much light on our 
history, and of explaining that attachment to the peerage 
which now perplexes you. It is because the nobility 
formed a caste in France, but has never done so in England, 
that the order is viewed with such opposite feelings in 
the two countries. In France all the descendants of the 
noble were noblesse, and enjoyed immunities given to the 
detriment of the people at large, and which no bourgeois ^ 
or his children could hope to share. Here the children ; 
of the highest peer are, all but the eldest, and that after i 
his father's death, commoners in the eye of the law. They [ 
enjoy no immunities, and the humblest man in society is 
not always without a chance of seeing his son a peer, 
spiritual or temporal. The father of Lord Nelson was an 
obscure country clerg}Tnan ; the father of Lord Lyndhurst 
an American painter ; of Bishop Blomfield, a parish-clerk. 
Lord Ashburton was himself a merchant. And these are 
the circumstances which attach the middle class to the , 
lords : they are their own flesh and blood, and even in ] 
their haughtiness they take a natural kind of pride. To 
this you must add the respect which an Englishman can 
scarcely help feeHng for the ancient families, sprung from 
those barons who wrung: Mag^na Charta from a mean-souled 
tyrant, and who at many other trying periods of our 
history bought with their blood our laws, our liberties, 
and our glory. Think how many lords stood for the 
people against Charles I Almost all the parliament's first 



TO THE KEY. DR. CHANNING. 365 

generals were peers. And it was by a few whig lords that 
the revolution of 1688 was planned and brought to effect. 
Long live the principle and practice of religious dissent ! 
As a mass, zealous churchmen of every rank are tories at 
heart. The principle of passive obedience, the worship 
of the powers that be, is almost inextricably interwoven 
with om' establishment — certainly the most systematically 
servile in Christendom. Of the present reaction, as far 
as it exists, several causes may be assigned, of which I 
take the strenuous efforts of the clergy trembling for 
many things — their surplice fees among the rest — to be 
one of the chief. There has certainly been much bribery, 
and still more intimidation, on the part of the tories, and a 
very unjust cry raised against ministers on account of the 
new poor law, in favour of which none of them were more 
warm or decided than Wellington and Peel. But several 
of these obstacles to the popular cause are temporary in 
their nature, none of them absolutely invincible ; and if 
our young queen should continue her confidence to Lord 
Melbourne, whom at present she delights to honour, and 
who has had the wit to surround her with whig ladies of 
the household, I see not but that the small ministerial 
majority may suffice to keep the whigs in office. At any 
rate, I strongly confide that all really useful reforms will 
sooner or later be carried, even without invading the con- 
stitution of the House of Lords. The fact is, that the 
sovereign, if sincerely bent upon it, has always means 
sufficient, by the application of certain court rewards and 
punishments, of commanding a majority in the upper 
house ; and the commons, by their command over the 
purse, can co7npel the sovereign to use this power in 
conformity with their will. Thus the result of all is, that 
a majority of the lower house can always make itself obeyed 
in the long run. The house, like the nation, is at present 
nearly equally divided ; but with the spread of light and 



366 LETTERS 

knowledge I believe that the party of liberty is also diffus- 
ing itself — and think what victories it has already achieved. 
Eash or unj ust measures on either side may temporarily 
depress, by disgracing, one or the other party, but I do 
not greatly fear the ultimate event. This great nation 
ivill have what appears to itself a good government. 
Indeed, to say the truth, we have not now a bad one, though, 
like all human institutions, it might be improved. 1 msh 
I could see the people better. But the crying sin equally 
of our nation, and of yours, and of all commercial nations 
the ^auri sacra fames,' goes on augmenting with the 
growth of trade, of manufactures, of mechanical inven- 
tions, and even, I fear, with the diffusion of the elements 
of knowledge. To give men new wants is indeed the way 
to make them industrious, but it is also the way to make 
them rapacious, dishonest, gambling speculators, and in 
public life corrupt. I 

Reverting to what you say of the imputations cast on 
H. Martineau in your country, I think- it due to her to 
state, that I have never heard of anything against her 
personal morality, and large allowances must be made for 
the hatred wliich she has meritoriously drawn upon herself 

from your slaveowners, and their base abettors 

There are no new books much worth mentioning to you ; 
indeed this is not the publishing season. I hope Hallam's 
volume will soon appear. I hear he is now able to employ 
himself, though still very sorrowful for the loss of a lovely, 
lovely daughter, who was his worthy pupil and delightful 
companion. 

Adieu, and believe me 

Ever truly youi-s, 

L. AlKIN. 



TO THE EEV. DR. CHANNING. 06 7 



No. 38. 

Hampstead: April 18, 1838. 

Ah, how kind ! You write and thank me for a letter 
of I know not how old a date, when my conscience has 
been reproaching me, I know not how long, for leaving 
your last but one unanswered. But how could I write 
with any comfort so long as that sad Canada business 
remained unsettled? Whilst I could not tell whether 
violent spirits might not even make us /oes— as far as 
national hostilities could render us so ? Happily, most 
happily, these fears are all at an end. We have all possible 
reason to praise and thank your government for its 
conduct towards us, and it has taken away our common 
notion, that your central force wanted strength to control 
the self-will of your borderers. Democracy has done itself 
great honour by you. For a while, I knew not what to 
say for it, to myself or to anybody else. 

It is very difficult for our two nations to understand 
each other, yet I assure you I have long given your people 
credit for that ' fire under snow ' which some French- 
woman ascribes to Englishmen, With regard to our 
boxing -Tnaiches * I have only to say that they are not a 
popular amusement ; being totally illegal, they are never 
held in cities, but only in by-places, and are frequented 
by few except those called, in slang phrase, * the Fancy ' — 
that is, an assemblage of gamblers, sharpers, ruffians, and 
profligates of every degree, from the duke to the chimney- 
sweeper. Eespectable men, even of the lower classes, 
never need witness them, and seldom do. I think I 
mentioned mercy to animals as rather a neiv feature of 
our national character, brought out by laws and education. 

* Since this was written the United States have sent us their Heenan, to 
meet our Tom Sayers. 



368 LETTERS 

The same causes have produced a striking amendment in 
respect of profane swearing ; I am told that no member 
of a mechanics' institute ever utters an oath, and even 
coachmen and cabmen shock the ears less than formerly. I 
Your rector who said the English whipped their wives, I [ 
take to have been regardless of truth ; at least, in my whole 
life, I never either read or heard of one single instance of 
that infliction ; though of many, alas ! of husbands in- 
juring, or even killing, their wives by kicks and blows of 
the fist. In ninety-nine cases out of the hundred, in- 
toxication — either of the man, the woman, or both — is the 
occasion of these brutalities. If, or let us say vjlten, we 
grow more temperate, we shall mend in this point. Our > 
law does what it can for beaten wives, by binding 
husbands over, on complaint, to keep the peace; and I ' 
am told that the merest clo\vn feels deeply the disgrace 
of this, and seldom offends again. Paddy is a much f 
more frequent offender, by pugnacity of every kind, than ' 
cooler John Bull or Sandy. 

No I — born champion of my sex as I may almost call 
myself — I say deliberately, on good knowledge and careful 
consideration, that there are only two points in which it 
seems to me that our laws bear hard on women. The 
first is, in the want of a stricter hand against the inveiglers 
of girls for wicked purposes ; the second, in the full power 
which the father is still allowed to retain over his children 
when his offences have compelled an innocent wife to 
obtain a divorce from him. It is surely most monstrous 
that a woman should be restrained from separating herself, 
under circumstances of the most aggravated offence, from 
a brutal and unfaithful husband, by his inhuman threats 
of never letting her see her children more — of placing her 
daughters under the very care of his mistress — a menace 
which I know to have been uttered ! 

On carefully comparing the Code Napoleon with ouis. 



TO THE EEV. DK. CHANNING. 369 

I am convinced that we have the advantage of French 
women. Yet, understand me, not as admitting that we 
have nothing to complain of. Society wrongs us where 
the laws do not. The life of a woman is esteemed of less 
value than that of a man. Juries of men are very re- 
luctant to punish the slayer of his wife as a murderer. 
Her testimony is undervalued ; men-juries often discredit 
her evidence against a worse than murderer. She is 
wounded by the privileged insolence of masculine discourse. 
' Woman and fool,' says spiteful Pope, and dunces echo 
him. Any feeble-minded man is an •' old woman ; ' fathers 
cry out to their boys in petticoats not to care what their 
elder sisters say to them. These and the like insults, 
when my blood was hotter than now it is, have cost me 
many a bitten lip. One of our legal exemptions signally 
offends me. It is that which grants impunity even for 
felony committed by a wife in presence and under control 
of her husband. Has a married woman, then, no moral 
freedom? Must her vow of obedience include even 
crime? Surely this disgraceful exemption ought now, at 
least, to be withdrawn, when that immoral vow is no 
longer an essential of the marriage rite. On the whole, 
however, I think the present age is more favourable to 
our sex than any former one. Women are now, with us at 
least, free of the whole circle of arts and sciences ; they 
have neither ridicule nor obloquy to encounter in devoting 
themselves to almost any department of knowledge. All 
men of merit are forward in cheering them on ; they are 
more free than ever. Alas ! I speak of women, but you 
may say I only mean gentlewomen. In truth, I can speak 
of none else with personal knowledge — the miserable 
drudges, the beaten and half-famished wives, and a class 
still more miserable, are never seen, never heard of by 
me in my tranquil home. I know not whether it ought to 
humble me — perhaps not, all things considered : but the 

B B 



370 LETTERS 

fact is, that I know scarcely more by actual survey of tlie 
dwellings, the manners, the characters of the most 
numerous class in England, or even in Hampstead, than 
of the inhabitants of Pekin. As to the attachment of 
women to priests, it is curious to observe how little there 
was of it in England a century ago. Recollect how 
bitterly Swift complains of their contempt for divines and 
exclusive preference of beaux and the military. Ladies 
are, no doubt, much superior now in education, tastes, and 
manners, to that generation : then they played quadrille ; 
now they read theology, and attend lectures, and gather 
pence for missions and bible societies. In this country 
we are subject to rages, and these things are, or have been, 
the rage amongst us. But the influence of the clergy over 
women is so natural that the wonder is to find that it was 
ever suspended. They seize the female soul both by its 
strong and its weak sides, its spirituality, its thirst after 
perfection, its docility, its hopes, its fears, its melancholy, 
its lively and often ill-regulated imagination, and its 
general averseness, or incapacity for close reasoning. And 
this last defect, little is done by modern systems of culture ' 
to correct. I see numbers of men, and a still greater 
proportion of women, full of acquirement and accomplish- 
ment, but mere children in reason — absolutely destitute 
of the first elements of philosophy, and willing to give up 
their souls to the guidance of the first who ^vill take the 
charge. Many times of late it has been a project with 
me to write something or other respecting us English- 
women; but alas ! I have lost all energy, and my projects 
come to nothing. If you were to lay your commands upon 
me to write you some letters on this subject, perhaps — 
for think what I have just said of clerical influence over 
us — and I declare that if any reverend gentleman has 
power over me, it is you. 

Carlyle does offend my classical taste ; but the worst of it 



TO THE EEY. DE. CHANGING. 371 

is that I have been absolutely riveted to his first volume, 
which I have this minute finished, and that I am hungering 
for the next. A very extraordinary writer certainly, and 
though somewhat, I must think, of a jargonist, and too 
wordy and full of repetition, yet sagacious, if not profound, 
and wonderfully candid. I think, too, that he shows an 
exactness and extent of knowledge of his subject which very 
advantageously distinguishes him from poetical historians 
in general. I assure you he is not without enthusiastic 
admirers here ; his lectures on Grerman literature last 
year were a good deal talked of; and I see he has an- 
nounced a new course on general literature, which I must 
enquire about. I am ready to hail almost any striking 
phenomenon in literature; we have had little but mediocrity 
lately. Of your two books, ' Miller ' and ' Alison,' no notice 
whatever has come to my ears. I have just heard that 
^ Alison ' is praised in ' Blackwood,' therefore ultra-tory. If 
they be new works, as I suppose, the first cannot be 
written by Professor M. of Grlasgow, nor the second by 
Alison (of Taste), who is now very old and quite infirm ; I 
believe it is his son. 

Pray read Guizot's ' Histoire de la Civilisation en 
Europe,' a small book which will give you much matter 
of thought. 

No, our pattern speakers do not confound h51y and 
wholly ; to the short vowel in the last word they give a 
sound between o and u, if you can imagine it. Trent- 
north, a grand boundary of dialect, the provincials say 
luoley or ivooley, and in Norfolk they say hullj ; but stick 
you to wholly if you would pass for a member of your 
much-respected the English aristocracy. 

I really am totally unable to understand your faith in 
the coming of a time when all men will be regarded by 
all as equals. Such a ^time can plainly not come without 
community of goods, and to that I see no tendency ; nor 

B B 2 



372 LETTERS 



can it arrive whilst any division of labour exists. As long i 
as one man works only with his hands, and another with 
his head, there will be inequality between them of the 
least conventional kind ; inequality in knowledge, in the 
objects of thought, in the estimate of existence, and of all 
that makes it desirable. Among the rudest savages there j 
has always been inequality, produced by that nature itself I 
which gives to one man more strength and more under- 
standing than another; and all the refinements of social . 
life open fresh sources of inequality. Even in a herd of I 
wild cattle there is inequality produced by dififerences of I 
age, and sex, and size, and what imaginable power or 
process can ever bring human creatures to a parity ? As 
little can I see how such a state would be the practical 
assertion of the preference due to the * inward over the 
outward,' to ' humanity over its accidents.' Are not many 
of these sources of inequality really inward? Are not 
these accidents inseparable from humanity ? The things 
which elevate man above his fellows are all poivers of one 
kind or other : wealth is a power, since it can purchase , 
gratifications and services ; birth is a power, where the ' 
laws have made it the condition of enjoying privileges or 
authority : where they have not done so, it speedily sinks 
into contempt. Grenius is a power; weight of moral 
character is a power ; beauty is a power ; knowledge is a 
power. The possessor of any of these goes with his j 
talent to the market of life, and obtains with it or for it ■ 
what others think it worth their while to give — some 
more, some less. Can or ought this to be otherwise? 
The precious gifts of nature must be valued so long as 
humanity is what it is; the results of application, of 
exertion, mental, bodily, cannot cease to bear their price 
without deadening all the active principles in man. I see, 
indeed, a tendency in high civilisation to break down in j 
some deo'ree the ancient barriers between class and class. 



TO JME ££T. SiB. CBASSJSiSL 373 



:7 roads to veabdi, to faoR, and to 
"^tt and Barj* RcfBidds and 

T trailed wtt]idiadameiliber1ijH0mndi 

- thoBR who bave ooOii^ to rol 
: _____ " lie itaclt The 

- . rtailKfiHeGod;t]ief 

-"^ of llie lav, fairf: aodalfy 



It iKwrfirw^nM 



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gIOW( 



374 LETTERS 

you have explained wliat I before thought a puzzling 
phenomenon. I could, if my paper allowed, cavil at your 
opinions on public amusements ; but another time. ' Texas ' 
seems to me your greatest effort yet. May success reward 
the patriotic virtue which inspired it ! 

Ever believe me, my respected friend. 
Yours most truly, 

L. AlKIN. 



No. 39. 

Hampstead : July 16, 1838. 
My dear Friend — There are two urgent reasons why I 
must make jNIr. Gannet the bearer of a letter to you ; first, 
because it is always a pleasure to me to send you a 
friendly greeting ; and secondly, because I wish, whilst the 
impression is still fresh, to express the gratification I have 
felt in his society, and to thank you for the introduction. 
On his first arrival here, the lamentable state of his 
health and spirits, obscured, though they could not quite 
conceal, his admirable talents and qualities ; but they now 
shine forth, and we all find him an exceedingly interesting 
companion. Of his powers as a preacher I have not en- 
abled myself to judge, but I can bear strong testimony to 
the perfect modesty and simplicity with which he receives 
tokens of a success which would be sufiicient to turn most 
heads. Mrs. Joanna BailHe told him truly, that he had 
been talked of at a time when we had scarcely leisui'e to 
talk of anyone — so full were all heads with our grand 
coronation ; and I never saw anything more beautiful than 
the unaffected modest dignity with which he received the 
compliment — it would have delighted you to witness. He 
carries back with him the esteem and good wishes of all 
whose testimony is worth having, in spite of very indus- 



TO THE EEY. DE. CHANNING. 375 

trious efforts to injure liim — I believe you know from 
what quarter. 

And what have you thought of the fever-fit of loyalty 
which has seized * universal England,' on occasion of 
setting the crown on the head of our young queen ? Per- 
chance you may have viewed it somewhat in the spirit of 
the laughing philosopher ; but if you had been an eye- 
witness of what passed, I think you would have sympa- 
thised in our emotions more deeply than you now believe 
possible. This young creature has thus far conducted 
herself most admirably. Her behaviour at her first council 
was described to me by an excellent judge who was present, 
as combining the highest degrees both of self-possession 
and of sensibility compatible each with the other, and such 
has been the complexion of all her conduct since. Her 
steadfast adherence to a reforming ministry has been of in- 
estimable value to the cause of liberality and improve- 
ment ; her perseverance in the same course is what we 
have most to wish, and to let her see the popular attach- 
ment which it has already gained for her seemed the most 
likely means of securing this great object. The people 
have to support her against the aristocracy, and I have 
heard it said, I believe with as much truth as point, that 
the ministry is kept in place by the queen and the shop- 
keepers. In the meantime, it seems to me that we are 
going on well; reforms proceeding slow and sure, and 
decidedly the tone of at least a large portion of society 
becoming constantly more liberal, both in religion and 
politics — the natural effect of the continuance of a whig 
and low-church administration. I perceive signs also of 
a revival of literature, which now again is able to hold up 
its head in the presence of science, by which it was for 
some time in apparent danger of being totally over- 
shadowed. In particular it pleases me to perceive that 
historical literature is cultivated with great activity, for 



376 LETTERS 

which there are two obvious causes : a state of public | 
feeling which allows history to be written freely without 
incurring persecution either from the government or the 
mob ; and, with respect to our own country, a great acces- 
sion of new information from the printing of the public 
records. 

These favouring circumstances, I think, will enable even 
me to conquer my long desponding indolence, and attempt 
a new design. My plan is not yet matured, but it is only 
entre nous that I give any hint of it ; but I am turning my 
thoughts towards something like a view of letters and 
social life in England during the first sixty years of the 
last century, i. e. the reigns of Anne and the two first 
Greorges. This will differ from my former works in ex- 
cluding civil history entirely, for which I could not now 
undertake the labour of collecting materials, and my chief 
doubt at present is, how far the work can be rendered 
sufficiently interesting without it. I must intersperse 
biography largely ; and I propose entering deeply into the 
subject of female manners and acquirements. At present 
I am only collecting materials, but that is no disagreeable 
or uninteresting part of the business. You may infer 
from my entertaining so bold a design that my health is 
stronger than it was, and I expect to find it still further 
benefited by plunging into business which will alleviate 
the constant weight upon the spirits of domestic solitude. 

I wonder whether you have ever been a great student 
of the works of Addison, especially of his periodical 
papers. It seems to me that justice has not even yet been 
done, or at least is not done in this generation to his un- 
rivalled merits. To women he was the greatest of bene- 
factors. By his arch ridicule and gentle reprehension of 
their follies, especially of their idleness and their ig-no- 
rance, he worked a wide reformation. By teaching them 
to observe the respect of the other sex he enabled them 



TO THE EEV. I)R. CHANNING. 377 

to sec are it. No systematic advocate of the rights of 
I woman, especially none who is herself a woman, will ever, 
we may safely predict, do them half so much service. I 
have a good many remarks to make on this topic, which I 
believe will be new, and I hope may be useful. 

Did I not say to you in my last letter, that a gay 
young, play-going queen would make a formidable coun- 
teraction to the progress of the evangelicals ? I will now 
add that they have been receiving a great injury from the 
liands of their own adherents — the sons and biogaphers of 
Mr. Wilberforce. The book is luckily so tiresome as well 
as so sour and so narrow that it meets with general abuse, 
in spite of the efforts of the Edinburgh reviewer, a 
nephew of Mr. Wilberforce. Everybody sticks fast in 
the perusal, and it has damaged the subject of the book 
scarcely less than its authors. It is plain that whatever 
other merits Mr. Wilberforce might have, he was by no 
means a man of strong understanding ; and the curious 
disclosure of his practice of wearing pebbles in his shoes 
by way of penance is little likely to do him honour with the 
English of the nineteenth century. The life of Hannah 
More was a much more readable book than this, because she 
both wrote and received many agreeable letters before her 
conversion ; but even that made no great noise out of her 
own set, and I believe did no good to her cause. Our 
rigorists of the establishment seem now to be swinging 
towards that kind of high-churchism which is but just to 
be distinguished from popery; which will do less hai*m, 
because less likely to be taken up with enthusiasm by the 
common people than the high Calvinism of the evangeli- 
cals. The intolerance and the pharisaical arrogance of 
the two systems is much alike. 

One trait of popular sentiment which I observed in 
watching the coronation procession may interest you. 
There was vast applause of the queen, great applause of 



378 LETTERS 

her mother and of your friend the Duke of Sussex, and a 
kind recognition of the other members of the royal family ; 
there was generous applause of Soult, because we had 
formerly beaten him, but not the slightest notice of any 
other foreigner. The ambassadors extraordinary might 
display as much pomp as they would, and certainly such 
splendour of equipages had never before been exhibited in 
the streets of London ; still honest John remained obsti- 
nately mute, or contented himself with whispering, ' De- 
pend upon it those coaches are English built, and the 
horses bought here.' WTience I infer, that national pride 
was the leading principle in the popular mind ; such part 
of the show as each man might tell himself he had helped 
to pay for delighted him ; the rest rather provoked his 
surliness, and he was little disposed to thank foreign kings 
for all their civilities. 

I trust your pen is not idle ; you must go on writing, 
if it were only for the sake of your public here, which 
becomes a wider one with every new piece you give us. 
Texas we most of us consider as your best effort. 
Pray believe me ever 

Yours, with the truest regard, 

L. Alkix. 



No. 40. 

Hampstead: Not. 16, 1838. 
My dear Friend — You like overflowing letters, you say. 
and I have no great difficulty in finding materials for 
such in writing to you ; the worst is, that I grow tired, 
throw aside the half-filled sheet, and leave it in my 
writinsr-desk till it is too stale to send. This is what has 
happened now. I have just condemned a fragment to the 
flames, and whether this present attempt will have better 



TO THE KEY. DR. CHANNING. 379 

success remains to be seen. You enquired if I had read 
Prescott's ' Ferdinand and Isabella ; ' and hearing much of 
the work, particularly that so excellent a judge as Lord 
Holland called it the best history written in English 
since Gribbon, I was unwilling to write till I had at least 
seen something of it. I have now finished the first volume 
and entered upon the second, with very great satisfaction. 
The spirit and sentiment of the work is admirable ; there 
is enough of reflection, and not too much ; the narrative 
is lively and flowing ; and great judgment is shown in the 
proportions assigned to the various topics on which it 
treats. It is entertaining, with every mark of strict 
adherence to truth, and instructive without deep philo- 
sophy indeed, or sententiousness of remark ; but by means 
of a pervading spirit of candour, good sense, and liberality, 
the interest of the subject hurries one on, at first reading 
too fast, I believe, for the credit of the writer ; and I have 
little doubt that a second perusal would disclose many 
fresh merits of detail. As for the style — the diction rather 
— it is pretty good for an American. ' Civil ! ' cry you ; 
but like our members of parliament, I disclaim 'any 
personal application.' In fact, it is not in a style like 
yours, which neither is, nor ought to be, a colloquial one, 
that any difference from that of an Englishman can be 
detected. Neither, indeed, is Mr. Prescott chargeable 
with using words or phrases peculiar to your country. If 
it were possible in these days of steamers and railroads to 
imagine an Englishman possessed of the knowledge and 
literary talent of this writer, who should never have 
mingled with the good society of London, he might be 
expected to compose in the same style, that is to say, 
provided he had never made a study of his own language. 
He, Hke Mr. Prescott, might employ the Scotch term 
' a border foray ; ' he might call artisans operatives, the 
slang word of Grlasgow weavers ; he might transplant from 



380 LETTERS 

the newspapers, French, military, and other terms, he | 
might perhaps want the tact to exclude from the style of | 
history several mere colloquialisms, as well as corrupt uses 1 
of words which might be enumerated. Considering this f 
work as one which will attain a permanent station in f 
English literature, I cannot but regret these blemishes, \ 
and wish to see them removed in another edition. But I 
there is a special reason why I mention them to you, f 
which is this. You tell me you can see no use in our ) 
aristocracy. This is a use — to establish a standard of taste f 
and refinement in language as in manners; to rebuke \ 
pedantry ; to set a mark upon ignorance, provincialism, f 
and vulgarity; to preserve the native tongue in equal 5 
purity and vigour. No one without having frequented • 
those London circles, where lettered men and women of ^ 
rank associate with lettered men and women without ^ 
rank, can form a just conception of the grace and beauty ^ 
of which our language is susceptible in its colloquial ' 
forms. No one without this advantage can attain finished ■ 
elegance in any style of composition, except the most 1 
grave and dignified — that of the pulpit and the schools ; f 
at least, such attainment is so rare, that when we meet ^ 
with it, as in the works of that loiu Irishman Groldsmith, • 
it fills us with surprise as much as admiration. No Scotch- ? 
man has ever accomplished a perfect English style. Blair ^ 
and Eobertson escaped faults by rejecting all idiom from '^ 
their composition ; but at the expense of all originality [' 
and charm. Hume supplied his want of English idiom ^ 
and disdain of Scotch, by seizing upon French phrases. 
Burns, in prose, wrote no language at all ; and Weaker 
Scott is full of provincialisms and barbarisms, some of ^ 
which, through his popularity, threaten to naturalise ^ 
themselves amongst us. Charles Lamb, a Londoner, ^ 
gained a pure and very racy English by study of our old ^ 
writers, especially the dramatists, but he acquired at the 



TO THE REV. DK. CHANNING. 381 

same time a quaintness which only the best society could 
have taught him to discard. Dryden, Cowley, and 
Addison, our three great masters in the middle style of 
composition, all lived first with scholars, as they were 
themselves, and afterwards with courtiers, nobles, states- 
men, great lawyers, and great ladies. A sound classical 
education, with assiduous study of our best writers, might 
indeed suffice to forming a pure and correct style, provided 
their effects were not counteracted by hearing vulgar 
speech and reading the bad writers of the day ; but in 
general all people read the current trash more or less, 
and those who have no access to elegant speakers will 
scarcely escape the infection derived from coarse ones. 
An upper class, a metropolis, and a court, can alone pre- 
serve the language of an extensive empire. Therefore, 
woe unto you, Americans ! It amuses me to think that 
I, who have all my life belonged to the democratic party, 
and have earned the lasting enmity of the admirers of 
King Charles and his cavaliers, should, with you, take the 
part of a champion of monarchy and aristocracy. You 
may place it, if you will, to the account of that spirit 
which the lords of creation affirm to be so prevalent in 
our much-libelled sex. But when you profess that ' the 
reasons for an aristocracy are beyond your comprehension,' 
I own I wonder a little. Allowing that I may be too 
much inclined, as Bacon said of James I., ^ to take counsel 
of times past,' I still must hold that a philosophical 
thinker ought not to shut his eyes to the large fact that, 
until the establishment of your states, the whole world, 
as far as it is known to us by history, had never seen a 
nation, barbarous or civilised, destitute of some kind of 
hereditary nobility or aristocracy, excepting those eastern 
monarchies where all were equal, because all were nothing, 
beneath the rod of the despot. A counterbalance to the 
absolute power, whether of a king or a people, has the 



382 LETTERS 

most obvious utility, and I offer it for your consideration, 
whether that very propensity to form associations, which 
you have found it necessary to rebuke in your own country, 
is not the consequence of the want of one. In a land 
where ' the right divine of Tuohs to govern wrong ' is con- 
secrated as a first principle, how can any sect or any party 
propose to itself another mode of carrying its points, than 
persuading or compelling the adherence of a numerical 
majority? Where the cooperation of king, nobles, and 
people is required to every public measure, all interests 
must be consulted; that even of the few must not be | 
absolutely sacrificed to the many ; reason, justice, fairness, 
must be allowed their plea ; above all, full liberty of speech 
is secured. In a despotism, whether of one, of the few, or 
of the many 'sic volo, sic jubeo,' is sufficient. With 
regard to our nobility, every impartial person who will 
study thoroughly the history of its political conduct, must 
own this : that it gained Magna Charta ; that it opposed 
effectual resistance to the despotism of the Church and i 
its head, and the introduction of the slavish maxims of 
the civil law; that it controlled in many important 
instances the encroachments of our kings ; that in the 
great struggle of Charles and his parliament it endea- 
voured, however vainly, to hold the balance ; that it gave 
many confessors to the cause of liberty, several distin- 
guished generals to the people, and that the abolition of 
its constitutional powers was one of the most guilty acts 
of the military usurper ; that it gave us our glorious and 
bloodless revolution, and by its resistance to a Tory House 
of Commons, Tory squires, and Tory clergy, saved us from 
the return of the tyrannical and bigoted Stuarts ; that 
even at the present day, a majority of the high and old 
aristocracy, which owes not its honours to the trade- 
pampering policy of Pitt, adheres to Whig principles, 
though it repudiates Radicalism, that is, the supremacy of 



TO THE REY. DK. CHANGING. 383 

the rude and selfish and ignorant many. With such past 
claims to our gratitude, and in my opinion so much of 
advantage to be hoped from it for the future, I say to the 
illustrious order, with all its faults, its errors, sometimes 
its provoking obstinacy — 'Esto perpetual' Were you 
more intimately acquainted with the feelings of our people, 
I believe you would soon renounce the opinion that the 
existence of the aristocracy endangers property. One 
proof of the contrary is, that those notable public meetings 
in which the working men take care to show our optimists 
how very little their notions have advanced since the days 
of Jack Cade, all take place in manufacturing towns — 
the very places in which the aristocracy do not reside and 
exercise no influence. Even in London, where the in- 
fluence of the aristocracy is rather that of the class than 
of individuals, the ultra-Eadicals could make no hand of 
it; indeed, I believe they are everywhere pining away 
under the contempt of their superiors and the neglect of 
the attorney-general. Ignorance is weakness. Ignorant, I 
believe, the bulk of our spinners and weavers must in 
the nature of things always remain. In your young 
and unexhausted country, with land cheap and labour 
dear, all is different. May you be able to realise the 
beautiful idea of a nation self-governed with wisdom and 
justice. With us, the old distinction of governors and 
governed must still subsist ; but we may indulge the hope 
that public opinion, which in all classes above the very 
lowest has made, and is daily making a real progress in 
light and liberality, will irresistibly urge upon rulers a 
constant attention to the interests of those who know not 
what is truly good for themselves. Thus only can we hope 
to see them preserve that ' national feeling ' which, cheap 
as you may hold it, Mr. Burke truly entitled ' the cheap 
defence of nations.' Since beginning this letter I have 
been proceeding with * Ferdinand and Isabella ' with still 



384 LETTEES 

increasing interest and approbation, and I beg that when 
you write you will give me any particulars you think 
proper of the author, as I cannot help feeling great desire 
to know something of his personal history. What think 
you of our new Oxford set of Laudists or semi-Romanists ? 
They at least serve as counterbalance to our evangelicals. 
I must now conclude, having an immediate opportunity i 
of sending my letter to London. 

Ever truly yours, 

L. AlKIN. 

No. 41. } 

Hampstead: March 23, 1839. 
Months ago did I say to myself, ' My Boston friend will 
be making enquiries about these Puseyites before long, ^ 
and I must take care to be provided for him.' At the ^ 
same time I do not think them of much consequence or ' 
likely to be so ; and although the sect seems to have its 
fanatics, it is no new illumination, but mere Laudism — an 
extreme of high-churchism which cannot prosper without 
much more countenance from the magistrate than it 
appears that it has any chance of recei\ing. Dr. Pusey 
was some time ago the ringleader in a plot for depriving 
Dr. Hampden of his divinity professorship, on account, or 
on pretext of an explanation given by him of the doctrine I 
of the Trinity, which Pusey and his followers called here- 
tical. But their zeal or malice, having impelled them to 
go beyond the authority given by the statutes of the 
university, they were called to order by the government ; 
and Dr. Hampden, after making a sort of recantation, 
obtained preferment, although he had openly pleaded for 
the admission of dissenters to the universities liis worst 
heresy. As for the origin of the sect, some say Cambridge 
having had her Simeon, Oxford must have her Pusey. 



TO TEE REY. DR. CHANXING. 385 

But the root lies a little deeper than this. Our church, as 
you know, is a Janus ; ha\TLng one face towards Greneva, 
the other towards the city upon the Seven Hills. Of the 
sour Geneva face, as exhibited by the modern evangelicals, 
our gentlemanly clergy began to grow very sick, and to 
fancy they should prefer the other, which at least becomes 
a mitre far better. 

For the purpose of inclining the minds of the people in 
the same direction, this party have for several years past 
been publishing panegyrics in reviews and sermons, and 
panegyrical biographies of our elder divines, with cheap 
editions of their works ; endeavouring quietly and gradu- 
ally to bring into fashion again that edging on toward the 
Eoman creed, that exceeding, almost scriptural tenderness 
for the divines of the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries, 
which distinguishes the Church of England dignitaries 
from Elizabeth inclusively to our revolution in 1688 from 
other Protestants ; concerning which edging Coleridge in 
his latter mind says, ^I scarcely know whether to be 
pleased or grieved with it.' Yet in an earlier passage of 
his ' Literary Kemains,' we find him confessing that there 
was a strange lingering of childish credulity in the divines 
of the episcopal church down to the time of James II., 
when the Popish controversy ' made a great clearance.' 
But this, by the bye. Besides the increased reverence for 
priesthood by episcopal ordination derived from apostoli- 
cal succession, and the notion of authority in the church 
to make orders for externals, and decide questions of faith 
which the study of these writers was fitted to instil, an 
important advantage may have been calculated upon in a 
great controversy. It begins to be clear to all parties, that 
the doctrine of the Trinity cannot be defended by Scrip- 
ture, so many of the texts formerly relied upon having 
yielded under the assaults of modern criticism ; but make 
Scripture of the fathers of the four first centuries, and 

c c 



386 LETTERS 

you have all the authority for it that you can possibly 
desire. The atonement also might be much strengthened 
by making an apostle of Augustine ; but tliis perhaps is 
rather the affair of another party. Now, although this 
scheme had something plausible, I doubt its solidity. Of 
all attempts, the least promising is that of restoring things 
gone by. 7, indeed, believe folly to be immortal, but in- 
dividual follies certainly live out their day and die. Much 
as it would redound to the glory and profit of the clergy 
' to lift again the crozier,' it cannot be done without the con- 
currence of the state, without the restoration to the church 
of coercive powers long since lost, without an authoritative 
quashing of controversy, without a commanded exterior 
reverence to things fallen into general contempt ; such, for 
example, as the keeping of Lent, so scouted in the House 
of Commons the other day. Therefore, depend upon it, 
one Pusey will not make a Laudian church. I should not 
wonder to see a part of the real fanatics of this sect turn 
Papists ('go the whole hog,' as yovi say) : the others will 
cool down into proud stiff high -church people — nothing 
more. The best is, that they thwart the evangelicals, and 
thus divide the house against itself, for which it will not 
stand the faster. 

With respect to the bishops who subscribed to the 
sermons of my venerable friend, a little allowance must- 
be made for them. Men who are governors in a 
church with such creeds and such articles, cannot very 
consistently appear as patrons of Unitarian sermons ; ther 
Bishop of Durham,* accordingly, had stipulated to have 
his name suppressed, and might justly be a little vexed atj 
the breach of this condition ; — the more, as he was bap^; 
tised and bred among the Unitarians, and has always been 
of very suspected orthodoxy. The other bisliop I take; 
to be a timid Liberal. On the whole, I think what youj 
would call rational religion is silently working its way Idj 
* Dr. Maltbj, 



TO THE REV. DR. CHANNING. 387 

society. It is remarkable that the Unitarian sect, con- 
fessedly one of the very smallest in the country, has more 
members of parliament in proportion belonging to it than 
any other denomination whatever, — a strong presumption, 
as it appears to me, that many more favour and secretly 
entertain these opinions than think proper as yet openly 
to avow them. The orthodox dissenters, who have not a 
single member, are enraged at this circumstance, and I 
have no doubt it sets an edge on the polemical zeal of the 
clergy. An Unitarian has also been made a baronet, one 
j of the best of men. The present ministry are constantly 
I upbraided by their opponents as enemies to the church, 
I and not entirely without reason ; yet they are supported 
! by majorities, though small ones. 

Pray observe that it was chiefly as a school of taste that 
I commended the society in which rank and talent meet. 
I am sensible that some who frequent it too much, lose 
that earnestness on which you justly set a much higher 
moral value. But I see also those who, with manners 
rendered adroit by the intercourse and example of the 
great, know how, in more select and private circles, where 
they meet equals, to maintain excellent opinions on the 
highest subjects — to maintain them with the more effect, 
for never losing command of themselves, or a just defer- 
ence to the claims of others. These indeed are the elite ; 
as to either commonplace or merely worldly people, they 
certainly are rendered less displeasing by polished man- 
ners, and neither more insipid nor more hollow. 

One word more as to aristocracy. In this country it 
cannot be said to have accomplished its vocation of keep- 
• ing the peace so long as we have such frightful inequality 
of property — that is, so long as our population continues 
(and what should prevent its continuing ?) so excessive in 
proportion to the means of support. Eight shillings a 
week is the present pay in many parts of the country of 

c c 2 



388 LETTERS 

an agricultural labourer, and hope of ever mending his 
condition in the common course of things he has none. 
Dare you trust such a man with a vote ? Political power 
in such hands would soon conduct us to universal confu- 
sion. There must be with us strong buttresses to coun- 
terbalance the thrust which would bring all to ruin. I 
Malthus, Malthus ! you saw the source of mischief — who ! 
sees the remedy ? 

I thank you much for your address to the Franklin j 
society. It has many very valuable remarks and sug- I 
gestions, but I thought there was some vagueness, for 
want of more divisions of the subject Ought not 
moral and intellectual culture to have been considered 
separately ? In one place you observe that books are not 
necessary to culture ; in another you eloquently expatiate ■ 
on their value. Now this I regard as no real inconsis- > 
tency, but I wanted some distinctions to take away the | 
appearance of it. You in your country of easy circum- 1 
stances may look to universal school education ; . here I * 
neither expect, nor indeed desire, at present to see it 
attempted. What a mockery to ofifer learning to the [ 
English labourer at eight shillings a week, or to the Irish 
peasant with his insufficient quantity of the worst kind of ' 
potato ! Will the spirit of the age, from which you expect 
such great things, bring any mitigation to the sufferings ( 
of our mass ? I fear not much ; but it is still a duty to do all 1 
that is possible ; and in as much as a government practises 
rigid economy, promotes legal reforms, and renders justice 
accessible to the poor by its cheapness, and by a spirit of 
real impartiality in the ministers of it — in as much as it 
trims the balance skilfully between the conflicting claims 
of different classes and interests, it will discharge its 
highest duties. You will not dispute, I conceive, that 
these views of political measures involve moral, and if 
moral, religious considerations of the utmost importance. 
Therefore you may find even our political events matters 



TO THE EEV. DR. CHANNING. 389 



fit for your concern. The more, as it cannot be disputed 

I that, in the main, the Whig is the party of reformation of 

j all kinds, the Tory that of corruption and abuse. 

; A project of which I am much more in dread than the 

! attempts of the Laudians, is one of which our busy Bishop 

' of London * is the head. He has founded a society for 

i the purpose of bringing education under ecclesiastical 

i control. This body are visiting all the London schools ; 

! they enquire of the masters (I know not whether they yet 

I take cognisance of school-mistresses) whether they will 

j adopt the methods of the society ; especially whether they 

I will engage to teach Church of England catechism, and 

whether they will submit to be examined by the society as 

to their competence in learning. If they consent, they 

are patronised; if not, an opposition school is founded 

close by, and all means are adopted to ruin their business. 

The only comfort is, that this association being maintained 

solely by private subscriptions will perhaps die away by 

degrees for want of funds, and also that it savours too 

much of an inquisition to suit the feelings of the English 

public. The Grerman divines are a thorn in the flesh of 

our university clergy. They dare not pretend to despise 

their learning ; and how to prevent their heresies from 

spreading amongst the students of theology? D(^end 

upon it, the hypocrisy is to the orthodoxy in our church as 

99 to 1 at the least. But can we rejoice in this? I 

cannot, unless it is to lead to some greater good than I 

can conceive. A learned but heretical Cambridge divine 

tells me, ^this generation of us think, the next will 

speakJ 

You cannot, I am sure, complain of this letter for want 

of length. I hope and think it has answered all your 

questions. I have made time to write it, for indeed I am 

I very busily engaged in collecting materials for my ' Addi- 

; son.' The writing of the work I have not begun, excepting 

j . * Bishop Blomfield. 



390 LETTERS 

in detached notes^ therefore I cannot yet judge what kind 
of figure it will make. I am in pretty good spirits about 
it, however — chiefly, perhaps, because my bodily health 
being stronger, my mind is more alert and more inclined 
to look on the bright side, at least of things depending on 
myself. I must now bid you farewell. 

Ever yours very sincerely, 

Lucy Aikin. 

No, 42. 

Hampstead : June 19, 1839. 
My dear Friend— Your very kind letter has just reached 
me, and I cannot be easy without sitting down imme- 
diately to thank you for it most cordially, and to give you a 
few particulars of myself, which I know you will read with 
some interest. I have indeed been long a very poor feeble 
creature, and during our long winter and chilly spring 
(the very opposite of yours, for it has been unusually back- 
ward) I was almost a complete prisoner : and a solitary 
one ; for the unhealthy season similarly affected many of 
my best friends, and kept them from \dsiting me. My 
spirits were severely tried in consequence. At length 
ApriP arrived, and I was looking to better times, when I 
caught, I believe, the influenza, which speedily increased 
from a feverish cold to an inflammation of the throat and 
lungs, which brought my life into imminent peril. For my 
own part, I had not the slightest expectation, nor, I may 
add, wish of recovery. The love of life, as I may have 
mentioned to you, has always been feeble in me. Under 
the influence of sickness and dejection it was at this time 
quite extinguished, and I was not only calm, but happy, 
in the prospect of a speedy solution of that mystery of 
existence which had often weighed heavily indeed upon 
my spirit. I called to mind all things and persons in- 
teresting to me, whether near or distant, and did not omit 



TO THE RET. DE. CHANNING. 391 

to direct a long message of friendship to be conveyed to 
you. But the Grreat Disposer had not decreed my imme- 
diate release. I am still here, speculating and reasoning ; 
and the affectionate expressions of my friends, joined to 
the natural influence of returning strength, now dispose 
me to receive less ungraciously the boon of lengthened life 
— useless creature as I feel myself to be, or useful only as 
affording an object to the kind affections of relations and 
a few frends. I live in my sad domestic solitude and 
inutility, and I have the grief to see the young and 
amiable wife of one of my nephews sinking under a mortal 
disease to leave behind her a heart-broken husband and 
motherless babe ! Mystery, all mystery ! 

Much have I to say to you, besides returning you my 
thanks for your two pieces on ' War ' and on ' Slavery.' The 
last I hold to be the very best work that you have yet 
given us. I agree with you throughout, or very nearly so, 
and I much admire the manner in which you have treated 
the exceedingly delicate topic of the abolitionists. You 
have dealt out exemplary justice between them and their 
persecutors. Your commemoration of Darwin's slave gave 
me a thrill of delight. From the days of my childhood, 
when I was among the abstainers from sugar till now, that 
kneeling figure has been the type of his race to my 
imagination. Let me add, that in this piece your style 
is more than ever to my taste. It is your true epistolary 
style, which I may well love best of all. 

The lectui*e on War gives more hold to remark, and 
perhaps controversy. Yet there is very much in which I 
cordially concur. The preliminary observations, and more 
especially the remarks on the causes of the present long- 
peace, and the summary of those which may again stir up 
war, the warning of the little reliance to be placed on 
commerce and prosperity as pacific, on account of the 
selfish and evil passions engendered by both, appeared to 
me not only just, but profound, and often original, and 



392 LETTEES 

worthy to be widely diffused and deeply pondered. Your 
discussion, too, of the right in governments to declare war 
has much powerful argument, and irresistible appeals to 
the heart and to the conscience. But your exhortations 
to Christians to submit to martyrdom rather than obey 
their governments in cases of unjust war, will, I conceive, 
be a good deal disapproved, both in your pure democracy, 
where * vox populi ' stands pretty generally, I suppose, for 
' vox Dei ; ' and in our mixed constitution, which freely 
admits of public meetings, petitions to the crown or the 
legislature, and instructions to representatives. It may 
be thought, perhaps justly, to tend to anarchy, and thus 
to war itself — civil war. You take new, and I think 
strong ground, in holding out a just acknowledgment of 
the rights of man as the firmest bulwark against war, tha*: 
thousand-headed monster of wrong ; this idea of the 
claims of man as such, you derive from the New Testa- 
ment, which certainly does inculcate that equality among 
mankind on which rights are based. Yet, on other points, 
are there not considerable difficulties attending the 
religious view of the subject? Our old puritans found it 
hard to reconcile the spirit of Christianity with the armed 
assertion of civil liberty, and discovered no other means of 
accomplishing it than by giving more authority to the 
maxims and examples of the Old Testament than the 
precepts of the New. In fact, although wars of revenge 
and ambition are crushed in the germ by the Gospel de- 
nunciations against the passions themselves, it does so 
happen that even these are not so directly prohibited as 
self-defence — as any thought of resistance to tyranny, 
violence, and wrong, exercised against ourselves. I do not 
see how any Christian can stop short of quakerism on 
this point, without allowing himself to regard these non- 
resisting principles as local or temporary in their intention. 
You, I suppose, take this view, as you permit self-defence. 



TO THE KEY. DR. CHANNING. 393 

But in many cases this is permitting all. Practically, the 
line dividing offence from defence is very often evanescent. 
Once allow war not to be utterly unlawful, and we may 
listen to considerations of state expediency, utility. ' Ne- 
cessity, the tyrant's plea,' comes in ; and I own I see not 
on what other ground — certainly not that of justice — you 
yourself hold it rigJd that your free states should be 
bound to supply troops to put down slave insurrections in 
the south. Thus each case of hostilities comes to be 
discussed on its o^vn merits or demerits, and the applica- 
bility of the religious scruple comes to be matter of 
opinion. In the end, the decision is left to the moral 
feelings or moral principles of men — antagonists how 
unequal to their passions, prejudices, and interests ! No 
cause, however, can be more worthy of the zealous efforts 
of good men than that of peace. Your lecture is emi- 
nently adapted to awaken conscience and reflection to the 
enormous guilt of war, and it will be reckoned to you 
amongst your best services to the interests of human nature. 
Meantime, let us be thankful that our two governments 
have shown too much wisdom, whether of the best kind or 
not, to make enemies of two kindred nations. The Borderers 
may go on jangling, but there is evidently nothing else 
to fear. 

You who do not love our utilitarian philosophy, will 
rejoice, I suppose, to learn that no less men than Messrs. 
Whewell and Sedgwick are doing their utmost to get the 
works of Paley put out of the course of reading for Cam- 
bridge undergraduates ; but I fear this step is not taken in 
favour of the beautiful mysteries of your Platonists, but of 
others more gainful to our state-church. Our clergy are 
desperately active at present, and proportionally mischiev- 
ous. They will not allow us to have a normal school on 
terms of anything like fairness to dissenters, and they every- 
where talk very big of ' the authority committed unto them ' 



394 LETTERS 

as the successors of the apostles. I have even heard of 
attempts amongst them to remind people of a monstrous 
old law, made against Popish recusants, and still unre- 
pealed, by which persons are liable .to heavy penalties for 
not regularly attending their parish church. I apprehend, 
however, that this applies now only to church people, the 
toleration act sheltering dissenters. They have * all the 
plea ' at present ; the press seems as much their own as if 
they had an inquisition at their command. But let them 
beware of what is gathering in silence. Men think very 
freely now and whisper ; presently they will speak out and 
act, I trust. If you take up a list of new publications, it 
seems as if nothing scarcely was written or read amongst 
us except theology, and of the narrowest kind; but so 
it is, that a person might live in the midst of the best 
and most literary society for a year together, and never 
hear the slightest mention of any one new book on these 
subjects. I know not exactly who are the readers, but I 
suspect scarcely any laymen of the smallest note. The 
clergy often write at the bishop or the patron, not the pubhc, 
and there are a number of women who write theology 
for little children, which some mammas encourage. The 
Tory party are in strict alliance with the Church; but 
I suspect they look more to the increase of their 
political power through this union than to any objects of 
a religious nature. You may perhaps have read in our 
debates, on what pretexts these high allies have defeated, 
for the present at least, the ministerial project in favour of 
a normal school, in which the Church would not have 
been permitted to impose her own dogmas on the children 
of dissenters ; and I think you will scarcely give such a 
man as Lord Stanley credit for honest bigotry on the 
occasion. I suppose that good is to come out of these 
conflicts between freedom and mental thraldom in the end, 
but the immediate effect is miserably depressing and 



TO THE KEY. DR. CHANNING. 395 

irritating. One can scarcely witness with composure even 
the temporary success of arrogant priestly claims, sup- 
ported by fashion, self-interest, or narrow-mindedness. 
You speak of Luther : have you read a selection from his 
* Table Talk,' translated into English, which appeared 
about ten years since ? It is very entertaining, and helps 
one to understand him. I respect him much. 

Mr. Eogers pointed out a passage in your 'Texas' 
beginning, ' England is a privileged country,' as one of the 
finest in our language. 

Have I not given you full measure this time ? and yet 
I feel as if I had more to say. 

Ever most sincerely yours, 

L. AlKIN. 

No. 43. . 

Hampstead: March 2, 1840. 
You think, my good friend, supposing you have given 
yourself the trouble of thinking on the subject, that it is 
an unconscionable length of time since I have written to 
you — in which you are much mistaken. I wrote you a 
long letter very lately, and it was safely conveyed to the 
post ; but by the egregious blundering of the Hampstead 
post-mistress (I have a great opinion of my sex, and cer- 
tainly think a woman fit to govern a kingdom^ but defend 
me from she-governors of post-offices !) — by her egregious 
blundering in our new postage law my unfortunate epistle 
got to the dead-letter office, whence it was returned to me, 
opened, creased, dirty, and unfit to send you. Ah ! you 
will never know what a loss you had there. Such a letter ! 
And poor I must be at the trouble to write another. 
Well, I submit with a good grace to any temporary incon- 
venience by this new law, which reduces our heavy postage 
to a single penny from one extremity of our island to 



396 LETTEKS 

the other. The moral tendency of the measure seems to 
me of greater value than j&gures can express. In the 
humbler classes it restores parents and children, brothers 
and sisters, to one another, who had grown strangers by 
long discontinuance of all intercourse; it will give a 
stronger impetus to national education than all the argu- 
ments yet advanced, and will' redeem many an hour from 
idleness or worse, for the usually iimocent, often amiable 
and useful, employment of letter-writing. In Scotland, 
where families are often so widely scattered by the impulse 
of necessity or ambition, which carries their active youth 
to the farthest ends of the earth, family attachments are 
nevertheless kept up with remarkable zeal and constancy ; 
with us, I am sorry to confess that this is not the case, at 
least in the lower classes. A boy or girl coming to London 
from a remote county to seek service, seems often to forget 
entirely the native village and the parent's roof, and with 
them all the moral restraints imposed by such ties. How 
stands this case, I should like to hear, with your New 
Englanders who rush into the wilds of the far TFes^? 
With them communication must often be difficult and 
tedious. 

You expressed to me in your last an anxiety lest our 
clergy should be permitted to exert the control over 
national education which they have ventured to claim by 
right of their office. Never fear ; it will not be submitted 
to. Notwithstanding the bluster of the Church party, 
nothing would so much surprise me as to see the establish- 
ment winning, or winning back, a single inch of ground. 
That spirit of power, the genius of the nineteenth century, 
says 1^0. I daily more and more perceive the sagacity of 
those who applied to the epoch of the passing of the 
Eeform Bill Talleyrand's expression, ' Le commencement 
de la fin.' We have been striding on towards essential 
democracy and religious equality ever since ; and nothing 



TO THE EEV. DK. CEANNING. 397 

seems to me capable of arresting this progress, unless some 
such absurd and furious movements of a chartist mob as 
might cause in the better classes the reaction of alarm. 

o 

In spite of my aristocratic letter — written when I, too, 
was suffering something of a reaction from deep disgust at 
the interference of your border states in behalf of our 
Canada rebels, and their insolent and ignorant defiance of 
the laws of nations — in spite of feelings which the better 
liahaviour of your executive has since mitigated — I view our 
domestic state with hope, and much though not unmingled 
satisfaction. The pacification of Ireland is a moral triumph 
which warms my heart with admiration, reverence, and 
gratitude towards the true statesmen who have com- 
passed it; and after this achievement I know not what 
task of reformation can be found too difficult. 

No ; we will not quarrel for a petty boundary question 
— -it is not to be thought of. ' What is that between me 
and thee ? ' May our rulers on both sides treat it as friend 
with friend, brother with brother. Believe me the tie is 
felt on our side as strongly as it well can be on yours. By 
all the liberal party, at least, it is strongly felt ; and I 
cannot but regard it as the most favourable of all circum- 
stances that this question should fall to be decided under 
a Whig ministry on our side. 

You have, I hope, found time to read Professor Smyth's 
' Lectures on Modern History,' and if you have, I feel sure 
of your finding in them much to approve and admire. The 
writer, a young and lively man of seventy-six, is an old and 
dear friend of mine ; he is also an admirer of yours, and he 
was just sending me a copy of his work to send to you 
when he learned that Mr. Eathbonq had anticipated him : 
but I said I would let you know his intentions. The 
merit of the counsels of peace, of tolerance, of mild go- 
vernment with which they abound can only be appreciated 
by recollecting that these lectures were delivered by a 



398 LETTERS 

Regius professor to the sons for the most part of aristocratic^ 
tory, and cliurchly families, in those evil days when 
Cambridge had nearly lost all memory of her former 
honourable distinction as the whig university. The ruling 
powers always regarded them with jealousy, and, as far as 
they decently could, discouraged the young men from 
attending them. They found however, large, and atten- 
tive and gratified audiences. The style appears to me a 
model for the purpose — lively, easy, extremely colloquial, 
but rising to eloquence and brilliancy where the subject 
prompts; and there is over all that charm of perfect 
sincerity and simplicity of heart, which I think must 
be felt even by those who know not how much it is the 
characteristic of the man. You will own that he has done 
thorough justice to the merits of all parties in your War 
of Independence, and that he knows how to estimate 
Washington. 

It warmed and cheered my heart to read your confes- 
sions of happiness ; few have such to make. For myself, 
I think life has become dearer to me since I was last in 
danger of losing it ; and this, strange to tell, in the face 
of a grievous anxiety, which is even now preying upon my 
heart. The health of my brother Charles, than whom I 
have no nearer and no dearer object of affection in the world, 
has long been in a very precarious state. His sufferings at 
this very time are exceedingly severe — and I tremble to think 
what may be the result. So dearly do I love him — so much 
has his life-long affection become a part of my very self — 
that I can think of one circumstance only which could 
render it tolerable to me to live after him — the prospect 
of being in some manner useful to his dear children. 

Your friends the Farrars are just at present my neigh- 
bours. I fear he is still a great sufferer by sleeplessness, 
and the train of miserable ideas which attend it. A severe 
trial for his excellent wife, but in which there is no fear of 



TO THE RET. DR. CHANNINa. 399 

her failing. I was glad to see her look in bodily health 
and vigour. 

I am not now in spirits to add more. 

Yours truly, ever, 

L. AlKIN. 

No. 44. 

Hampstead : May 16, 1840. 

My dear Friend — Accept my cordial thanks for your 
two new pieces, both of which I have read with deep in- 
terest and high approbation. That on the ' Elevation of 
the Working Classes' embodies much that I have often 
felt and thought, without being able to bring it out ; in 
fact, it applies to all classes ; and when I have seen, as I 
often have, families of young persons, diligent, docile, will- 
ing and able to acquire rudiments of many sciences, many 
languages, considerably skilled in various accomplishments, 
but without one original thought, one lofty sentiment, 
I have murmured to myself in sorrow — to what avail ? 
Hannah More had the merit of raising her voice against 
mere ' finger accomplishments,' in female education ; and 
I regard her as the setter of the fashion of domiciliary 
visits of ladies to the poor — a fashion which can only be 
followed to advantage by such among them as are capable 
of elevating the minds, not merely administering to 
the desire of temporal goods, in those with whom they 
converse. The kind of elevation you describe is cer- 
tainly very rare at present, and perhaps will always be 
so, but it is nevertheless the point to be aimed at, and I 
rejoice that you have taken up the cause. 

I was much struck and touched with your sermon, and 
I agree very much with your views on the great and dark 
question of the origin of evil ; but there is one passage in 
which, as I feel it a duty to inform you, you have laid 



400 LETTERS 

yourself open to severe, and, I fear I must say, just cen- 
sure. ' They never can be fair,' exclaimed a candid and 
excellent friend of mine, and your great admirer in 
general, on finishing your sermon — 'They never can be 
fair, these divines — not even Dr. Channing. Here is a 
passage which is an absolute slander — an aspersion which 
he had no right to make, and which is not true ; ' and he 
read the passage : ' Such scepticism is a moral disease, the 
growth of some open or lurking depravity.' * ^yhat busi- 
ness,' he continued, ' has any one to impute such motives ? 
WTiat has the view which a mind takes of arguments on a 
difficult subject to do with depravity ? The spirit of this 
judgment is precisely the same with that of a Catholic 
priest, who says ' you must be very wicked if you do not 
believe transubstantiation.' I sat petrified with amaze- 
ment at this burst of indignation, and I endeavoured to 
mitigate my friend — one of the mildest of men on common 
occasions ; but it was to no purpose. I could only plead that 
the offensive passage had probably escaped you by inad- 
vertence. * But,' I said, ' I will mention it to him, and we 
shall hear what he says.' ' Pray do,' exclaimed my friend : 
* he ought to be told of it.' I have now kept my word. 
I own that, for my own part, I cannot comprehend a 
doubt of the goodness of the Deity. We all feel that He 
has bestowed on us much intentional good : to believe that 
He has also inflicted upon us designed, that is, 'purposeless, 
evil, would be to conceive of him as a being weak, incon- 
sistent, infirm of purpose, more than any wise and good man 
— an idea at which reason revolts. At the same time, all 
that I have known of the characters of men who speculate 
freely, boldly, and, of course, sometimes absurdly, on these 
abstruse questions, convinces me that moral character 
stands quite apart from theories of this nature. If divines 
were admitted to know the real sentiments of men of cul- 
tivated and reflecting minds on religious topics, they would 



TO THE REV. DR. CHANNING. 401 

often be surprised, and even shocked, to find how many, 
and what kind of persons, they stab in the dark. By general 
reflections of this nature — they might even be alarmed at 
the deep, silent hatred of their whole order, which these 
insults cause to rankle in the bosoms of a class possessed 
of so much real, though usually latent power. This par- 
ticular doubt of the goodness of Providence I have often 
heard discussed among wise and excellent men ; and the 
conclusion has usually been that, perfect wisdom and 
goodness, combined with that absolutely unlimited power 
for which divines contend, are inconsistent with the evil 
which we see in the world — that you must limit one, 
at least, of the attributes ; and that power was, on the 
whole, that which seemed most susceptible of such limita- 
tion. To me, neither this nor any other solution of the 
problem appears entirely satisfactory. I believe it to be 
one which we have not at present the means of solving ; 
but I believe that it will be solved, so as entirely to ' vin- 
dicate the ways of Grod to man.' At the same time, I 
know those who take a darker view of the subject, to 
whom you, if you knew them, would be as far as anyone 
from imputing depravity, however secret. 

Enough, however, of this. You will, I know, rejoice 
with me, that the anxiety respecting the health of my 
brother Charles, which tormented me when I last wrote, 
has now subsided. He is now very nearly restored to 
health, and I have great pleasure in knowing that his fre- 
quent visits to me at Hampstead have been a principal 
means of his recovery. The breezes of this fresh hill-top 
are often the best of cordials to the dwellers in our over 
grown metropolis. This great and busy hive is at present 
in its busiest and fullest season — in full hum — but I 
know not that there is any great object of general atten- 
tion much deserving your notice. One book, indeed, there 
is, which would interest you by the character of the 

D D 



402 LETTERS 

writer, although many of the topics treated in it are pro- 
bably too exclusively English for you to enter into. This 
is the ' Life of Sir Samuel Eomilly,' published by his sons, 
and composed of his own diaries and letters. A more pure 
and perfectly disinterested public character has never been 
recorded ; in these qualities he might be compared with 
your own Washington. No man in memory had so much 
personal weight in the House of Commons; and it was 
this alone which enabled him, in those bad times, when 
the very name of reform was hooted down by a corrupt 
administration and its sycophants, to force upon the legis- 
lature some of those mitigations of our sanguinary penal 
code, which opened the way for the extensive improve- 
ments which have since been demanded by public opinion, 
and carried through by our best and ablest statesmen. In 
many other causes, also, he stood forth, the undaunted, 
and also the skilful, champion of humanity, justice, and 
souncj/policy. His private life was that of the most vir- 
tuous, tender, and amiable of men. If the book comes 
into your hands, read at least his own brief memoir of 
his early days. You will find it one of the most beautiful 
pieces of autobiography imaginable. It is remarkable that 
poetry should have been his first love, the object of his 
earliest aspirations — a grand confirmation of what I have 
always suspected ; that the heights of virtue will scarcely 
be reached but by those who behold them clothed in 
'hues unbounded of the sun ' — hues lent them by a warm 
and bright imagination ! 

The Puseyites, or Newmaniacs, as I believe they are 
more generally called, are certainly making progress. We 
have clergy who refuse to dine out on Wednesdays and 
Fridays, being the fasts ordained by the English Church. 
The other day a curate published a manifesto against a 
Bible Society, headed by two clergymen, for presuming to 
meet and to distribute the Scriptures in his parish. He 



TO THE REV. DR. CHANNING. 403 

declares it to be heresy for anyone to give away bibles, 
excepting the person deputed by tlie bishop to do so — 
namely, the officiating parish priest. A bold step towards 
Popery ! What is far more extraordinary, there are two 
laymen, members of the House of Commons, who think 
fit to scourge themselves! It is in vain to talk of the 
illumination of the age — at all times there have been, and 
I believe at all times there will be, horn fanatics, whose 
destiny is to make, if they do not find, absurdities to be- 
lieve and to propagate. I see no more probability that 
this distortion of understanding should become obsolete 
than that squinting eyes or hump-backs should cease to 
be found. At the same time, I think that this exagge- 
rated notion of Church power is less likely than any form 
of superstition, to find favour in the sight of the English 
people at large. There is a constant and natural hostility 
between High Churchism, and Whig, still more radical, 
principles in government. Under our present liberal ad- 
ministration, nothing is done by the state to strengthen 
the hands of the Church. The chief justice has just pro- 
nounced an important decision (that parish vestries cannot 
by law be compelled to vote money for church-rates), which 
is likely ultimately to liberate dissenters from this unjust 
burden ; and which strikes also at the pride and assump- 
tion of the establishment a blow which will be deeply felt. 
And so the French have set their hearts on having 
back the relics of their Emperor from his prison-isle, 
that they may make them the object of a grand show and 
ceremony. It was right, I think, in our government to 
grant the request, since they regard it as an obliga- 
tion, but I think it a. mournful sign of the temper and 
spirit of that people. Military glory, it seems, is still 
their idol. To their restless temper, peace is insipid, 
freedom is indifferent, they must have excitement, and 
that nothing can yield so largely as war. I tremble for 

D D 2 



404 LETTERS 

the results. To their king, this worship of the memory 
of Bonaparte must be exceedingly offensive. Nothinor, 
certainly, but fear of the consequences of refusal, can have 
induced him to concur in their wish, and the same fear 
may soon compel him to seize some pretext for going to 
war with one or other of his neighbours ; and so the flame 
would be rekindled throughout Europe. Horrible antici- 
pation I The mind cannot entertain it without shudder- 
iDg. What, alas ! in such a case, would become of all our 
hopes for the improvement of man and his destiny ! 

Our rumours of war seem blowing over. The King of 
Naples is wise enough to submit. We shall settle our 
dispute amicably with you. China, indeed, we shall 
apparently be obliged to take some hostile measures with 
— but we still hope matters may soon admit of arrange- 
ment. 

At home, I think we are going on well in almost all respects. 
The Tories seem further from power than ever, and many 
quiet reforms, which do much unostentatious good, are in 
progress. I know of nothing in our political state to 
excite apprehension, except it be the perpetual turbulence 
and restlessness of O'Connell, urging on his countrymen 
to arrogant claims and absurd enterprises, and the violence 
and folly of our own radicals. These absurd people may 
go on to produce some reaction in favour of toryism — but 
that is all, I think, that is to be feared. Even with these 
men, I hope that a wise and liberal government will 
know how to deal. 

Believe me ever 

Yours, with true regard, 

L. AlKIN. 



TO THE REV. DE. CHANNING. 405 

No. 45. 

Hampstead: Oct. 11, 1840. 

My dear Friend — Your last letter was very peculiarly 
welcome to me on many accounts. I felt that in giving 
you the ' ipsissinia verba ' of my vehement friend^ I had 
put your forbearance to a severe trial ; but it has stood it, as 
I thought it would, nobly ; and my friend begs to apologise 
for the word ' slander,' and is quite satisfied that he was more 
slanderous in imputing to you a priestly spirit. In short, 
your candour has quite turned his heart, and it is a heart 
worth turning. You are quite right in saying that my 
language on the subject was ' too cold ' and measured ; 
it was indeed purposely kept down, for I wished to see the 
argument taken up by you alone, and was only desirous 
to show that I was not one of those touched by your 
censure. In fact, the goodness of Grod is what I have 
never doubted, amid all my doubts, more than just enough 
to make me look into the proofs. I believe, rather I feel 
it, just as I feel my own existence; I have, like you, a 
difficulty in conceiving the horror and the absurdity of an 
opposite opinion ; and far rather would I endure any pos- 
sible earthly misery, than lose my trust in Him who is alL 
Could there ever have been a good man without a Maker 
of man infinitely superior in goodness ? One of Hume's 
Essays, in which he affirms that we might infer from the 
world around us, an intelligent, but not a moral cause, 
struck me, on re-reading it a few years since, as so utterly 
illogical, so truly absurd, that I could only account for it, 
from a writer of his acuteness, by supposing that he thought 
it prudent to throw this cloak over his atheism. Yet 
it is, indeed, worse than atheism — as bad as ultra-Cal- 
vinism. You ask if Carlyle makes any progress amongst 
us. Not with the thoroughly-read or the thorough thinkers. 



406 LETTERS 

the intellectual leaders of society; but he finds audiences, and 
some readers and admirers (I can scarcely say disciples, for 
I believe nobody pretends to make out his system), amongst 
the half-read and half-thinkers. You will not admit, 
with me, that some men are born fanatics, but perhaps 
you will allow to Coleridge that some are born Platonists, 
and others Aristotelians— in other words, that some minds 
have a bent towards the mystical, others towards the ex- 
perimental, in philosophy — that this difference is innate, 
and is ever reproducing itself under different shapes and 
names. In this country the experimental has long borne 
sway, with Locke for its leader ; of late there has been 
somewhat of a spirit of revolt; transcendentalism has 
some considerable advocates, and I think I can perceive 
that the general tone on these subjects is, in degree, modified. 
The high church dearly love a system which draws a 
distinction between the reason and the understanding, and 
affirms that doctrines which appear to the latter a contra- 
diction in terms, may be all the more conformable to the 
dictates of the former — the higher and nobler faculty — 
this, you may know, is the language held by Coleridge 
concerning the Trinity. I think, with you, that some 
great truths may lie at the root of these speculations, but 
many processes are to be gone through before they can be 
brought into daylight and fitted for use. In the mean- 
time, I both dislike and distrust the jargon — the cant of 
of which Carlyle has such a quantity. You would see in 
the ' Edinburgh Keview,' an article on his history, which 
appears to me to be an able exposure of his quackery, and 
at the same time a candid estimate of his merits and 
talents. The article is by a friend of mine, a man of 
immense reading for his age, and a paragon among re- 
viewers for downright honesty and impartiality — the rarest 
of all qualities when the writer lies screened under the 
irresponsible ice. 



TO THE EEY. DE, CHANNING. 407 

The grand field for activity amongst us at this time is 
that of general education. A prodigious impulse has been 
given by the apparently insignificant grant which our 
liberal government has extorted from the public purse, 
in spite of tory opposition. The established priesthood 
having been baffled, and by the ministry also, in its attempt 
to assume the control of public instruction, and force its 
own creeds and catechisms on the children of dissenters, 
we may now hope that a free, large, and truly national 
system of instruction will be adopted. Little as I am 
disposed to sanguine views of human improvement, I own 
I do look with ardent hope to a general amelioration of 
manners and principles as the ultimate result of this 
exorcism of ignorance and brutality. 

I trust we are in no present danger of the return 
of the Tories to power. This ministry has been well 
compared to the logging-stone, which one right arm can 
set shaking, but a hundred could not throw down. It 
seems to gain strength by the tempests which it weathers. 
There is great dissension, too, in the tory camp, and some 
important desertions have taken place. But, oh ! where 
will be all our hopes, should we see ourselves again 
plunged in the misery and wickedness of war ? There is 
no wish for it, but, on the contrary, the greatest horror of 
it, as I sincerely believe, both in the government and the 
nation at large ; but I fear that the spirit of the French 
people is the very reverse. They long to revenge them- 
selves on their conquerors, to gain territory, plunder, and 
glory — they abound in turbulent spirits, for whom peace 
offers no prospects, no career. I believe, indeed, that their 
king and all their best statesmen are pacifically disposed, 
but the awful doubt is whether they may not be compelled 
to yield to the torrent. Perhaps, after all, the heavy 
national debt of both countries is the best security for their 
peaceful behaviour. You enquire about Isabella of Castile, 



408 LETTERS 

and her relation to the inquisition, and I conclude, from 
what you say, that you have not read Prescott's life of 
her. He is her decided eulogist, and insists on our think- 
ing her one of the most amiabJe of women ; at the same 
time, he distinctly states that she directly violated the 
laws of her country in instituting that new tribunal — that 
no provocation whatever had been given her by the un- 
happy Moors, or the Jews, the joint objects of her relent- 
less and atrocious tyranny. In short, her persecutions 
appear to be amongst the most completely wicked — the 
most utterly inexcusable on record. She had not even 
the apology of bad example, her inquisition was an abso- 
lute novelty in the world. It is true that it was the 
invention and suggestion of an execrable monk, her father- 
confessor ; but neither had Isabella the excuse of a weak 
and pliant character ; she effectually withstood, on many 
occasions, the influence of a husband whom she is said to 
have loved, and I do not believe that she would have 
complied with her confessor in this matter, had she not 
expected to strengthen her royal authority by the destruc- 
tion or banishment of her misbelieving subjects. Her 
bigotry, like that of Louis XIV., was Httle else than the 
spirit of despotism in disguise. The persecutions of our 
bloody Mary were venial, compared with those of her 
grandmother. She had great provocations. 

Have you read Eanke's ' History of the Popes of the 
Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,' translated by Mrs. 
Austin ? If not, think that you have a treasure laid up in 
store. The writer has collected and studied his authorities 
with true Grerman industry, and has poured a flood of new 
light on the most important period of modern history ; and 
I, for one, feel it a real misfortune to have groped through 
a large part of that period without his guiding lamp. The 
history of the Papacy is so closely intertwined with that 
of every European nation, that no one, in future, must 



TO THE KEY. DR. CHANNI^'G. 409 

presume to write of Tudors, or Stuarts, or Bourbons, with- 
out consulting Eanke, and to possess a true history of this 
wonderful line of monarch-priests, is a greater gain ti; 
philosophy than it is possible to estimate. 

But why do I speak of books to read, to you who are so 
much better employed in writing ? I cordially congratu- 
late both you and the public on your task, and particularly 
on the ardent spirit with which you are pursuing it. I 
long to know what your work is to be, but, be it what it 
may, I am strongly persuaded that it will prove to be 
something that the world * will not easily let die.' What 
you have been meditating half your life cannot but be 
something of importance, and worthy of general attention. 
You did well to ' bide your time,' and to wait till you were 
sure of having the ear of the public in right of your 
former publications. May health and strength be given 
you to complete all that is in your heart ! 

In my little, quiet way, I am jogging on comfortably 
enough. My spirits have lately had a fillip, in the shape 
of a journey. Thanks to the railroad, I was able to convey 
myself, with little fatigue, to Southampton, where I found 
a kind friend in waiting to convey me eight miles further, 
to a beautiful mansion on the skirts of the New Forest. 
This is the largest sylvan tract remaining in England, and 
I was surprised to find how primitive a character it still 
preserves. A stone marks the spot where Eufus fell, his 
stirrup is kept as a relic at the royal hunting lodge, where 
the forest courts are held ; and, on the whole, it seemed 
to me that his name was quite as current in the mouths 
of men as that of Greorge III., the last monarch who 
hunted here. The cottagers are devotedly attached to 
their native soil ; they have continued on the same spot 
from father to son, many of them from the Norman times, 
in fact; they enjoy many advantages from the neigh- 
bourhood of the forest, besides that delightful sense of 



410 LETTERS 

liberty which waits upon the roamer of ' the good green \ 
wood/ and which he who has once tasted would scarcely f 
exchange for a palace. The wood consists chiefly of noble ^ 
oaks and stately beeches, and the undulations of the sur- f 
face open a thousand picturesque glimpses of hill and vale, ^ 
open glade and tangled wood, sprinkled with cottages em- « 
bowered in flower-garden and orchard, and mansions stand- » 
ing proudly on their emerald lawns. From the higher g 
eminences you command the Isle of Wight, \vith its bays i 
and headlands, and the soft yet fresh sea air breathes the b 
very spirit of health. I was in a state of enchantment ? 
during my whole visit difficult to describe. Since I began : 
this letter, I have been reading an article on all Carlyle's ; 
works in the ' Quarterly Review.' This author, who sets : 
himself so vehemently against all ' forms,' ought to feel 
himself rebuked by the praise which he has extorted from 
the ultra-High-Church reviewer, by his mystical use of j 
the word faith, from which it is easy for such a reviewer , 
to extract arguments favourable to ecclesiastical authority. : 
Woe unto us, if our philosophers are to be as hostile to the 
employment of reason in the investigation of truth, as our i 
high priests ! 

I must at length put a period to my long letter. I must 
answer some other correspondents far more briefly. 

Ever yours with true respect and friendship, 

L. AiKix. 

No. 46. 

Hampstead: Jane 12, 1S41. . 

My dear Friend — You cannot thank me more sincerely i 
for my letters than I thank you for yours. They are a true ■ 
refreshment to my spirit, which often suffers a famine from 
the extreme and increasing scarcity in this country of' 
such liberal and enlightened sentiment as forms the only 



TO THE EEY. DR. CHANNING. 411 

food on which it can exist. I allow, freely allow, that 
some useful truths — practical ones — have been powerfully 
argued — successfully promulgated among us, of late years. 
The cause of free trade, which I, like you, believe to be 
that of true and just and virtuous policy, has gained and is 
gaining. Our corn-laws are at the last gasp, and in 
timber and sugar, I believe, we are going right. But, 
alas ! what avails all this, if free speculation is taxed to 
prohibition — if religious liberty lies oppressed, stifled, 
down-trodden — if no man dares to say, in the face of the 
world, that all opinions have equal rights — that no one 
ought to believe himself entitled to put another to silence 
because his doctrines are not those of the majority, those 
that the state has endowed? We have in this country 
many evils — what country is without ? What a sign of 
the times is it, that so eminent a natural philosopher 
as Whewell, in his * Life of Gralileo,' labours to defend the 
proceedings of the Inquisition against him — calls them 
lenient — seems to suppose that the Church has a right to 
stop the promulgation of any truth which it regards as 
dangerous ! Oh ! I am sick at heart when I think upon 
these things. 

You will see that we are threatened, too, with a tory 
administration, but this is yet uncertain ; it will depend 
on the new parliament. Some think we shall see the 
fulfilment of the Duke of Wellington's prediction — that, 
if the Eeform Bill were carried, parties would be so 
balanced, that it would be impossible to carry on any 
government at all. In France this seems to be almost the 
case. 

I apprehend that the prodigious increase of zeal and 
activity, consequently of rancour, on the part of the 
Established Church, is mainly the result of Catholic eman- 
jcipation, and the strength and courage it has lent to the 
i Romanists, which Protestanism feels itself called upon to 



412 LETTERS 

resist with all its might and by all its means, Puseyism 
being one. Such unlooked-for, and often opposite effects/ 
flow from great public measures. The men who have 
spent their lives in bringing them about often live to rue 
in vain their own success. A consideration which, joined 
to several others, convinces me that fluctuation, much- 
more than progress, is the great law of human affairs.' 
But this you will be loth to admit. - 

I was struck with your idea of agriculture being the 
great civiliser of recent man, and I think that it has been 
so in some climates — but how this great affair of climate 
acts upon every other element of human life and society' 
— how it complicates this whole subject ! I know of 
nothing but the Book of Genesis which can be adduced in 
favour of the notion that the whole race sprang from a 
single pair. Probably there were many original races- 
adapted to different portions of the earth. * But why go 
on guessing where we cannot know ? ' ^^^ly ? because we" 
are guessing and speculating animals ! I am ever specu 
lating and guessing, because my mind is active and my 
body idle. This whole winter and spring I have been 
nearly a prisoner to the house ; latterly I have been really 
ill, but matters seem now mending with me a little. I 
grieve that you should have been so much a sufiferer. 
Perhaps we both feel that it is drawing towards evening 
with us. Well, so be it. 

As for my book, it is still among the future conditionals.^ 
I am no longer the diligent labourer I once was. Your- 
task proceeds, I hope. Great or small, it will be of thei 
kind of books that we want, the offspring of thought, not^ 
of mere reading. Original writers, I believe, are always 
benefactors towards mankind, either themselves or their' 
answerers are sure to bring out some new truths, or set some; 
old ones in a stronofer lisrht. 'VVTiether Carlvle deserves at 
all to be put in the list of original thinkers, I am yet in 



TO THE EEV. DE. CHANNING. 413 

doubt ; to me he still appears little more than a jargonist. 
He makes his way a little in society however, ay, and 
very genteel and very correct society, notwithstanding the 
tone of his work on the French Eevolution, which is surely 
radicalism, combined with the most odious and mischievous 
moral fatalism. According to him, all crimes and enormi- 
ties are ' by divine putting on.' You do not love the 
doctrines of necessity in any shape ; but surely you will 
admit that, between the vulgar fatalist and the philosophic 
necessarian there is this essential difference, that the first 
talks aa^ii any man may be destined to commit a crime, 
as any man may be destined to die of a fever ; the second 
firmly holds that none but a bad man can ever be destined 
to commit a crime, since no man can do anything but 
what he ivills to do ; his will, indeed, is actuated by 
motives, but in the mind of a virtuous man those which 
prompt to crime will never gain the preponderance. In 
fact, do we not feel that there are many actions which it 
is impossible, so long as we possess our senses, that we 
should ever find any temptation to commit ; so fixed is 
our conviction that nothing could ever make it worth our 
while. Fatalism is certainly not original in Carlyle, nor 
in the French school of writers from whom he borrowed it, 
but I fear they may have done something towards render- 
ing it popular. There is a circumstance respecting the 
French people at this time which I think remarkable, and 
am in doubt how to interpret. During their revolution, 
never was there such contempt for human life ; blood was 
poured out like water ; a man was crushed with as little 
regard as a beetle ; now the feeling is so changed that 
they can scarcely bear the idea of capital punishment ; 
their juries find ' extenuating circumstances ' even in the 
horrid act of a parricide, in order to save him from death. 
I should like to ascribe this scruple to none but good 
motives or causes ; but when I consider how strong is the 



414 LETTERS 

sentiment of moral indignation in every pure and virtuous 
and noble breast ; how uniformly all nations, where morals 
have been strict, and manners unsophisticated, have marked^ 
their horror of great crimes by taking away the offender 
from the midst of them, and compare this with the 
acknowledged profligacy and wickedness of Paris, and the 
assertion of those who know its society best, that the only 
inexpiable fault there is evil-speaking, I hesitate. My 
father has somewhere observed, that universal indulgence 
is near akin to universal profligacy, and I confess that I 
do not see mth satisfaction the anxiety manifested in France, 
and in some degree here also, to abolish capital punish- 
ments, while crimes are rather on the increase. The" 
' godly watch ' set upon one another by your puritans] 
was one extreme, and an odious one ; but the total dis-i 
regard of the conduct of others, where it does not imme-' 
diately affect ourselves, so inculcated at Paris, and perhaps- 
in high life generally, is still more fatal to all the lofty: 
sentiments and heroic virtues, and certainly favourable to- 
all the vices. 

The completion of this long letter has been accidentally 
delayed for a few days. In the meantime our good 
ministry has been out-voted. All now depends upon the 
spirit of the people. If they please they can return a: 
majority against the Tories — but ivill they? since it can- 
not be done without risk to the worldly ioterests of many. 
The crisis may be called awful, when Ireland is taken into: 
the account. I incline, however, to the hoping side, so: 
far as this, let who will be in power, public opinion must 
be respected, and, sooner or later, all really salutary: 
measures must be carried ; the question is one of this year 
or next with regard to several of the more important. 
But no such calm language as this will be held on the? 
hustings, and the evils of party virulence will abound, 
Alas for those who speak or write as the servants of truth 



TO THE KEY. DR. CHANNING. 415 

and posterity in the midst of party discord ! You, I trust, 
are safe from its influence. May you only be favoured 
with health and strength for the completion of your work ! 
' I long to see it. 

Pray believe me ever 
! Your affectionate friend, 

I Lucy Aikin. 

No. 47. 

Hampstead : June 80, 1841. 
My dear Friend — Many thanks for your ' Memoirs of 
Dr. Tuckerman ' and the accompanying Journal. I be- 
lieve they will cause me to send you almost a pamphlet 
in return ; but you who enjoin me sometimes to write fear- 
lessly what I think will not, perhaps, be impatient under 
this result. Your character of your friend appears to me 
exceedingly candid and discriminating, as well as affec- 
I tionate. It is unfortunately true, that with all his heroism 
j of benevolence, he did not make an agreeable impression 
here in general society. This was partly because, like all 
men of one idea, especially such as are eloquent, he could 
neither speak, nor suffer others to speak, of anything else 
in his presence — which wore out the patience even of the 
best disposed ; partly because, for want of knowledge either 
of the state of the poor with us, or of the plans adopted 
for their benefit, he, in the words of a very benevolent 
friend of mine to whom I introduced him, ' recommended 
as novelties the very things we had all been practising for 
thirty years.' 

It might well have been supposed, even by those ignorant 
of the fact, that in an old and densely-peopled land like ours, 
where great inequality of conditions had always prevailed, 
and where, as we are apt to flatter ourselves, humanity had 
always been a striking feature of the national character, 



416 LETTERS 

many schemes must liave been put to the proof for thei^ 
relief of such destitution, physical and moral, as our great ti 
system of parish support could not reach. But well might i^ 
Dr. Tuckerman have failed to be led by this consideration 5 
to acquaint himself fully with the facts, when an unworthy: 
Englishman goes so far in ignorance or ill will, as tol 
calumniate his country on this very head. I refer to theP 
very offensive speech of one Mr. Griles, of Liverpool, re- 2 
ported in the Journal you have sent me. It has pleased u 
this person, after judiciously- pointing out the efforts of 'i 
pastor Oberlin as a kind of compensation for the horrors' 
of the French Eevolution, to advert generally to the 
exertions making in favour of the poor and indigent young, i 
'through the diffusion of an education adapted to raise 
the soul more and more from earth, and point it heaven- 
ward.' He professes, however, to speak on this subject, 
'with horror and shame,' as a native of England, thef 
only country ' wanting in her duty ' on this head. While] 
'the proud despotism of Prussia,' as he says, 'trains up! 
her youth from the cradle to manhood, in a knowledge off 
themselves and the world around them, freeborn England 
casts them off as orphans.' And he goes on to represent: 
our agricultural and our manufacturing population as alike < 
existing in a state of sordid, almost savage ignorance, andt 
the last, as abandoned to all the excesses of the worst t 
passions of mankind, utterly ' neglected by those whose | 
wealth and power they secure.' 

In England, misrepresentation like this would not 
deserve refutation ; but it may not be labour lost, to ofifer ' 
to you and to your fellow-philanthropists beyond the 
Atlantic, a slight sketch capable of showing both what has 
actually been done here in this great cause, and the cir- 
cumstances which have rendered it impracticable to do 
more, or more speedily, or in a different manner. 

After the establishment and wide diffusion of Sunday 



TO THE KEY. DE. CHANNING. 417 

schools, the first comprehensive scheme for popular instruc- 
tion was that of Joseph Lancaster, schools on whose system 
forthwith arose by hundreds on every side. It is indeed 
true that the clergy, and other enemies to the diffusion of 
education among the lower classes, especially if indepen- 
dent of the control of the Church, opposed the poor 
Quaker mth disgraceful virulence, and nothing could have 
upheld him but the protecting hand of Greorge III., and 
the energy of his pious wish ' that every poor child in his 
dominions should be enabled to read its bible.' A kind 
of compromise at length took place; Dr. Bell and the 
Church Catechism were introduced into the system, and, 
under the name of national schools, we have still all over 
the country multitudes of establishments, supported by 
voluntary subscription, which afford to thousands the 
rudiments of common knowledge, and some acquaintance, 
it is to be presumed, with their duties to Grod and man. 

A system of national education at the public expense 
was next projected and moved in the House of Commons 
by Mr. Brougham. It was rejected — and why ? Because 
the necessity of neutralising the hostility of the clergy had 
compelled him, by the provisions of his bill, to subject the 
whole to their superintendence and authority. All classes 
of dissenters rose as one man against such stipulations, 
and by their wise jealousy, or just indignation, the measure 
was thrown out. In a country enjoying less either of 
civil or religious liberty this could not have occurred — 
not, for example, in 'the proud despotism of Prussia.' 
Without the command of the sovereign no such project 
could there have been brought forward ; and had he com- 
manded, it must have been carried into execution, whoever 
was jealous or indignant. This attempt, however, drew 
great attention to the subject, and was by no means un- 
productive of good. *Let us alone,' exclaimed the ^free- 
horn ' English, ' and we will do it ourselves.' Infant 

E E 



418 LETTERS 

schools, perhaps the most effective of all the means jet 
adopted for the prevention of early corruption of morals, 
were devised, and, with the rapidity of an epidemic, over- 
spread the whole face of the land. An active rivalry 
between the sects on one hand, and the Church, which had 
now found it needful to buckle in earnest to the unwel- 
come task, on the other, effectually prevented the zeal on 
either part from flagging. The small aid from the public 
purse since obtained by a Whig ministry, on terms as 
equitable as the bench of bishops would allow, has given; 
a fresh stimulus, by the conditions annexed to all grants, 
to the exertions of voluntary subscribers. The difficulty 
has been to find fit teachers in sufficient numbers. Insti- 
tutions, however, have been founded for the supply of this 
demand, and should the prosperity of the people keep pace 
with their generous ardour, the English people may soon 
contemplate their own plans for popular education with a, 
glow of satisfaction, to which the Prussian vassal, for whom' 
' drill obligation ' and ' school obligation ' stand on the 
same ground of compulsion, guarded by the same legal 
penalties, must for ever remain a stranger. t 

All that a free government could properly do by positive* 
enactment it has done. It is now compulsory on th^ 
owners of factories, on the managers of workhouses, the 
superintendents of prisons and penitentiaries, the captains 
of ships of war, to provide for the children and youth- 
under their charge the me^ns or opportunities both o^ 
school learnincr and relis^ious instruction — and is this 
little ? If after all it must be confessed that there is still 
a great and lamentable deficiency in the means of carrying 
civilisation, by which I understand a just and influential 
sense of the true interests of human nature, through 
out our vast population, it would be equitable at leasts 
to weigh more deliberately than some censurers seem to; 
have done the magnitude of the task, and the difficulties, 



TO THE REV. DE. CHANNING. 419 

to be surmounted in its execution. Clusters of factories, 
mills, and warehouses, rise among us like exhalations; 
much within the memory of man, our principal seats of 
manufacture have swelled from moderate country towns, 
sometimes from nameless hamlets, into aggregates of human 
dwellings, exceeding in population most of the capital 
cities of Europe. What provision could exist in these 
places for gratuitous education, or who was there to supply 
the want ? What orphan schools, almshouses, hospitals, 
established charities of any kind, could be looked for ? 
All was to be created, and by whom? The few older 
families fled, one after another, from the din and smoke of 
machinery, and the elbowing of the newly rich, to calmer 
retreats. The master manufacturers, men for the most part 
of scanty, often of no education, narrow therefore in their 
views, and frequently sordid, were slow in learning the 
claims of those whom they regarded chiefly as a part of 
the apparatus employed in producing their wealth. This 
was to be expected : and when it is considered that the 
periods of greatest distress to the workmen were precisely 
those of difficulty and failure to themselves, from tempo- 
rary obstruction of demand, it will be confessed that much 
destitution, physical and moral, was inevitable. 

By degrees, public opinion began to bear on this mighty 
mass of evil, and the eyes and hearts of men to open both 
to the claims of these lower classes, and to the frightful 
dangers of disregarding them ; but even then the efforts 
of benevolence were encountered among many obstacles, 
by one in particular, which there were no obvious means 
of overcoming. This was the wholesale employment of 
\ children, almost infants, in various branches of manufac- 
ture, particularly in that vast one of cotton twist. To 
^i attempt to give instruction to these little victims would 
<]have been absurd, and even inhuman. Not a moment 
could be spared from their too short hours of rest for any 

E E 2 



420 LETTERS 

other purpose ; and by necessity they were left to grow up I 
to the stature of human maturity with scarcely any other i 
evidences of humanity about them. But has no remedy 
been sought or applied to this giant mischief? What are 
all those long deliberations of parliament which matured ; 
at length the Factory Law, but the most touching evidence [ 
of the parental care of the state over those who had no [ 
one else to care for them? Under this law, the hours of i 
working are strictly limited, and by its provisions the ; 
children will receive education — as far as it consists in 1 
giving the rudiments of literature. Those moral influ- [ 
ences, which are indeed of infinitely more value, the state i 
cannot give, or can give but very imperfectly. If parents . 
be without all sense of their own duties, who can avert j 
the dreadful consequences from their unfortunate off- > 
spring ? Besides their setting to their children examples > 
which too frequently counteract all the influence of thej 
precepts of religion and virtue, it has been found in all j 
parts of our country much less difficult to raise funds for 
the maintenance of schools, than to persuade parents to( 
enforce the regular attendance of the pupils. Ignorance i 
too gross to form any estimate of the value of what was j 
rejected — false indulgence — but far more frequently aj 
selfish reluctance to give up during school hours any profit j 
or convenience derived from the labour of the child, have [ 
largely operated in counteraction of all plans of thisv 
nature. The case is the same, I perceive, with you.[ 
Three-fifths appear from the Journal to be the highest j 
average attendance on the schools of the Home Mission..^ 
In like manner church -building, the progress of which j 
among us exceeds anything ever dreamt of by our ancestors, ^i 
but yet perhaps no more than equal pace with thej 
increase of our population, is often found easier to accom-, 
plish than church attendance. And do not your ownj 
ministers at large in effect confess a failure, when theyr 



TO THE REV. DR. CHANNING. 421 

broadly state that it is an error to suppose that their 
services are attended by the lowest class ? Either there 
will always remain at the bottom of society a sediment 
which will refuse to be incorporated with the clearer 
liquor, or at least it can be but very slowly and gradually 
taken up. Establish, either in our country or yours, a 
Prussian compulsion, drive the children to school, and all 
ages to church, by the terror of fine and imprisonment, 
and what will be gained to compensate the loss of that 
spirit of independence, which has probably been the most 
important element of all in the greatness and progress 
both of England and her noblest offspring ? No valuable 
end can be attained but by means of a congenial character, 
therefore, not the diffusion of moral feeling and virtuous 
conduct, or of devotion, by arbitrary force. Better a 
slow, better a partial progress, than one which, under the 
show of universality, is delusive, and must fail in the full 
trial. 

With regard to that visiting of the poor at their own 
houses, to which the agency of Dr. Tuckerman was at first 
confined, there is Httle reason to impute negligence to our 
middle and higher classes, whatever faults may often be 
found in their manner of performing the office. It had 
I always been the practice of the better kind of country 
I ladies to distribute benefactions among the cottagers, and 
I often to carry, as well as to send them, aids in sickness. 
In towns of moderate size the same things were done ; 
i but Hannah More, in her ^ Coelebs,' by representing her 
i 'pattern young lady as regularly devoting two evenings in 
a week to making her rounds among the village poor, 
I unfortunately made it a fashion and a rage. I say unfor- 
tunately, because nothing is ever done well and wisely 
which is taken up in this manner. Judicious people saw 
that it was neither an expedient, nor indeed a safe employ- 
ment, for the inexperienced girls who undertook it. They 



422 LETTERS 

objected that young ladies would be exposed to injury, both 
in temper and taste, by the quantity of vulgar and inter- 
ested flattery, and vulgar and spiteful gossip which would 
be forced upon them ; that their ears would continually be 
assailed by grossness of expression, and their minds either 
sullied or saddened by too close and unveiled a view of 
human vices in their coarsest forms. A\Tiile we guarded 
them with unceasing solicitude against the approach of. 
even doubtful society of their own class, it seemed strangely 
inconsistent to permit them to come into habitual contact 
with what was positively bad in a lower class. 

I have no doubt that these and other objections urged 
in the beginning were found to be just, to a certain extent. 
The impulse was given, however, and nothing could stop 
it. It acted at first chiefly within the evangelical party : 
but that party became, at length, great enough to give the 
tone to society at large ; and the practice of thus superin- 
tending the poor has become so general, that I know no 
one circumstance by which the manners, studies, and 
occupations of Englishwomen have been so extensively 
modified, or so strikingly contradistinguished from those 
of a former generation. By these female missionaries 
numberless experiments have been made and projects 
started. Some have addressed themselves to the bodies 
of the poor, others to their souls, and there has been 
much quackery in both departments. Some have distri- 
buted Calvinistic tracts, others bread and soup tickets. 
Some have applied themselves to clothing the children, 
others to teaching them, others to reading to the sick and 
infirm. One of the results of this system, and which will 
not have your entire approbation, has been the formation 
of a prodigious number of associations for the accomplish- 
ment of objects to which the efforts of single persons were 
unequal. Women in this country have seldom enough of 
habits of business, and especially of that habit of the world 



TO THE KEY. DR. CHANNING. 423 

which enables men, by conciliation and compromise, to 
pursue their objects with almost any associates, to be good 
members of committees. I fear theirs are not always 
schools of forbearance or good manners ; but practice may 
improve them. It is a decided advantage that the new 
accession of zeal among the clergy has urged them to take 
almost entirely out of the hands of the ladies the theo- 
logical department, in which their bitterest dissensions had 
of course occurred. 

Grood and evil have arisen out of this great movement, 
as out of all others. The good I need not particularise. 
It is enough to say that much aid, much comfort, much 
instruction of many kinds, and, it may be hoped, some 
improvement in decorum, in piety, and in morals generally, 
may have been effected. On the other hand, I think that it 
has given rise among the ladies to much spiritual pride and 
self-injflation ; much of an imperious, pragmatical, meddling 
habit, which has rendered many both odious to the poor, 
to whom they took credit for being the greatest of bene- 
factresses, and troublesome and unamiable to their equals, 
It has diverted the minds of numbers, not from dissipation 
only, but from literature, from the arts, from all the graces 
and amenities of polished life, and rendered many a home 
intolerable to husbands, fathers, and brothers, thereby 
causing more moral mischief than all their exertions could 
eradicate among the poor. But the wise and the foolish, 
the gentle and the ungentle, will ever throw their own 
characters into all their occupations and pursuits. With 
regard to the poor, the benefits they have derived have 
been counterbalanced by a vast increase among them of 
hypocrisy, and a disgusting cant of piety, assumed to 
flatter the ladies ; of fraud and imposture generally, and 
of a fawning, dependent, servile spirit, unworthy of free- 
men. Idleness and helplessness have, in many wealthy and 
well-visited neighbourhoods, become more profitable than 



424 LETTERS 

activity and a manly resistance of the evils of life. In- 
temperance has been fostered among the men, by an 
assurance that if they did not provide necessaries for their 
families, the ladies would. 

I apprehend that more good, and certainly fewer evils, 
have attended the exertions of some excellent men who 
among us have followed in the footsteps of Dr. Tuckerman ; 
they alone ought to attempt indiscriminate visiting of the 
lowest of the low in great and vicious cities. Ladies might 
act more usefully under their directions. 

I fear I must have wearied you by this long account ; 
but I wished, besides refuting a most injurious imputation 
on my own country, to make you acquainted with the 
results of our experience in attempts to benefit the poor, 
the ignorant, and the vicious. Your country is still young 
in the arts of dealing with human misery on a great scale. 
The essential differences between an aristocratic and a 
democratic social system which penetrate into every part, 
must vary the working of every plan and modify every 
result : but, after all, it is common human nature which 
is to be dealt with, and the great principles must be the 
same. 

You naturally wish that the increase of your city should 
not proceed, if it is to be followed by the moral evils 
which have accompanied, in all times and countries, a 
similar aggregation of men and dwellings. In vain ! gre- 
garious man will ever go on joining house to house, and 
street to street, and vice and misery will ever find abodes 
among them. But will not virtue dwell there also, and 
domestic happiness — warm hearts and enlightened minds ? 
Will there not be there, as everywhere, more good than 
evil, more enjoyment than suffering ? There will ; for all 
is in His hands who loves the creatures He has made. 
This, after all, is the true balm for the wounded bosom of 
philanthropy, when, after many trials and much experience. 



TO THE EEV. DR. CHANNING. 425 

she discovers how hard a task it is to do even a little good 
— unalloyed, how impracticable ! I will now release you. 
Believe me ever most sincerely yours, 

Lucy Aikin. 

No. 48. 

Hampstead: Aug. 6, 1841. 

My dear Friend — It delights me to think how far our 
correspondence is from languishing. I trust you have ere 
now received a long letter from me, occasioned by your 
Home Mission Eeport, and I yesterday was gratified by 
your letter on our Church. I answer it while fresh in my 
mind. I am not able to say whether methodism, mean- 
ing -strictly the sect founded by Wesley, and that division 
of it which followed Whitfield, has been injurious to 
dissent or not. I believe the converts were chiefly either 
members of the establishment, or persons who had pre- 
viously known nothing or cared nothing for religion in any 
shape. It seems as if the spread of the evangelical spirit 
in the Church had checked in some degree that of 
methodism, which scarcely, I think, keeps up its propor- 
tion to the population. But when I lamented the decline 
of dissent, I had in my mind that of Presbyterianism 
chiefly — that is, of the only sect which could boast of 
learned ministers, and which once included in its bosom 
a very considerable body of wealthy and well educated 
and enlightened families. 

As for the other old denominations, the Independents and 

the Baptists, they are by no means declining in numbers. 

j Formerly their congregations were seldom found but in 

towns, and among the trading classes, but I am now told 

that there is scarcely a rural village throughout the country 

I in which either they or the Methodists, under some of their 

; subdivisions, have not some humble place of worship. 



426 LETTEKS 

They reckon, I believe, by hundreds of thousands. But in 
this aristocratic country, as you truly call it, numbers alone 
stand for little or nothing. These dissenters have no 
political power or weight whatever, as their ministers 
have confessed or complained. They have not even 
a single member of parliament belonging to them, 
while the little Unitarian aristocracy has about fifteen. 
Their opinions are, I believe, Calvinistic to a high 
degree, and it is only as persons asserting practically the 
right of private judgment in religion, that it is possible 
to prefer them to the members of the establishment. 
I know not at all what their political bent may be : this 
only we may rely on, that any administration which should 
strongly favour the Church would be certain of their 
enmity — a consideration which may come to be worth the 
attention of Sir Eobert Peel. At periods of crisis every 
right aim tells. The church-rate question has served in 
very many parishes throughout England as a muster-roll 
of the rated householders, and in a majority, I think, of 
these, the dissidents altogether have carried it against 
mother-church. Observe that rating, i.e. to the poor, 
goes lower than the elective franchise, at least comprises 
much greater numbers. It may a little illustrate this 
matter to you, if I mention that full half the maid-servants 
I have had were either some kind of methodists or regular 
dissenters; and I believe this to be general. You see 
from this, that there is no apparent tendency to what you 
would call pure Christianity in our lower classes^— except, j 
indeed, that among the Baptists there are, or were, some [ 
Unitarians. The sect of socialists, the growth of which 
seems connected or coincident with that of chartism, is i 
not a Christian sect, it seems, but a deistic one, which has [ 
exposed itself to just disgrace by condemning the institu- j 
tion of marriage. I know not at all to what extent it has [ 
spread, or whether it still increases. The pubHc at large 



TO THE REV. DR. CHANNING. 427 

scarcely know it but through the invectives of the Bishop 
of Exeter in the House of Lords, in which there is probably 
both exaggeration and misrepresentation. Still I have 
heard, apparently on good authority, that there is scarcely 
a town in England without a socialist congregation — an 
ugly fact, if it be one. A comparison of the religious 
state of our country now, and a hundred years ago, will 
not, I conceive, support your theory of the progress of 
mankind. Then we had Low Church principles in the 
establishment; the dissenters learned, respected, and 
steady ; the deists, what there were of them, learned also, 
moral, and too prudent to promulgate their opinions among 
the vulgar. 

No ; I cannot go all the length you have done in your 
late adciress, though I admire it very much, and cordially 
thank you for it ; and if it be an exact delineation of the 
present state of opinion with you, especially of the tolerant, 
rather the enlarged enlightened state of Christian feeling, 
I must say that we might take a lesson from you with 
great advantage. But I have often wished to ask you on 
what special ground you fix your confidence in the constant 
progress of the race. You reckon much, I know, on the 
influences of Christianity ; but in this there is nothing new, 
and why should this power over the human heart be con- 
tinually augmenting ? If the world could be considered 
as an individual, we might readily suppose it a design 
of Providence that all its experiences of every kind should 
be tending to increase its knowledge and improve its virtue. 
But when two things remain always the same — the nature 
of Grod and the nature of man — ^when every human creature 
is born into the world with the same ismorance, and what 
is more, with the same appetites and passions, as his 
earliest and rudest progenitors — when the necessity for 
the existence of evil, whatever may make that necessity, 
cannot be supposed likely to cease — can we reasonably 



428 LETTEES 

expect more, than that in some countries the progress of 
the arts of life may redress some outward inconveniences, 
and obtain for a portion of society some outward comforts 
and luxuries, and that great crimes of violence may 
become more rare, and vice in the higher classes less gross ? 
Men may grow more skilful in adapting means to ends, 
but may we hope that their ends will be wiser or better ? 
The very diffusion of knowledge may prove little more 
than the beating out of the ingot into gold leaf. In this 
country, at least, literature in its higher sense is certainly 
not advancing ; books must be made so rapidly, that even 
industry, labour, cannot be bestowed on the manufacture. 
For the interests of good taste, and the effectual cultiva- 
tion of the mind, it would be far better if we had not 
above one-tenth of the new books that are published ; and 
so in science, the sciolists may amuse themselves, but 
assuredly they do nothing for the advance of any branch of 
study. 

Your new people may be making progress, and I hope 
they are; but in these old countries population increases 
upon us so frightfully, that it will be very well indeed if I 
in any respect we can hold our own. Such are my more 
gloomy speculations; but it is impossible to concur 
more entirely than I do in what you point out as the 
improvement to be made of the present state and ten- 
dencies of society, or in the warnings which you think 
required. 

No more will I add at present. I doubt if you will 
thank me for so much on the discouraging side. But you 
seek the truth, and it should be told you. 

Ever most sincerely yours, 
Lucy Aikin. 



TO THE EEV. DR. CHANNING. 429 



No. 49. 

Hampstead : Jan. 10, 1842. 

My dear Friend — It grieves me mucli to find that illness 
was the cause of that long silence which I had been wonder- 
ing at and lamenting. This cause did not suggest itself 
to me, because I had received from you a sermon delivered 
far from your home, and, as I thought recently, which 
certainly bore no marks of feebleness. This, I think, is 
almost all I shall say to you about it, for a good reason — 
that I know nothing of the subject. Your discourse goes 
entirely on the ground of religion being a social, an uniting 
principle ; and such indeed I know it to be usually. To 
me, however, it has never been so ; on the contrary, I have 
always felt it as a matter more strictly personal than any 
other ; and the very last office I could bear to commit to 
any human being would be that of speaking to my Maker 
for me, or in my name. I mention this only as what is, 
not what ought to be : at least it is a matter in which 
everyone must do as suits best with his temper and cir- 
cumstances. I can imagine that if it had ever been my 
fortune in youth to attend upon any minister who could 
either have satisfied my judgment, or moved my heart, 
I too might have known devotion as a bond of friendship, 
a social pleasure. Your charity is very large, and certainly 
no man ever had less of the priest 

I am glad my mention of it led you to read Milman's 
work ; and I made him very happy two days since, by tell- 
ing him that he had cheered your convalescence. It was 
very many years since we had met before, and that but 
once, yet we had each a strong remembrance of the other, 
and met like friends. I found him cheerful, animated, 
quite without pomp or pretension, and full of agreeable 
conversation. I agree with you, however, that his style in 



430 LETTERS 

writing is by no means so easy or simple. His close study ! 
of Gibbon seems to have injured him in this point. There 
is no writer whose faults are more infectious than Gibbon's 
— condemn them as you will, you cannot contemplate them I 
long without a strange propensity to repeat them. In fact, ■ 
though certainly faults, they are seldom gratuitous ones. • 
Most of his ambiguities prove, on examination, devices to 
comprise much matter in few words : this is seldom the case 
with those of his imitators. You ask if our church has 
many Milmans. Very few, I conceive ; and the clergy are so 
far from being proud of his learned and courageous work, 
that they and their reviews have preserved a studied silence 
respecting it. I know not which way mother-church is 
setting her face. Oxford, indeed, casts a longing eye towards 
Eome, but with the powerful evangelical anti-Popery party 
to watch her, she durst not what she would. Then Scotland 
is almost in a flame on the old ground of the superiority 
of the Church authorities to the civil power and the laws 
of the land. In that country the Sabbatarian fanaticism 
burns still fiercer than among our evangelicals. ^Miat 
think you of a provincial presbytery's excommunicating a 
man and his wife also for burying their child on the Sun- 
day — the general custom here, at least with the working 
classes ? I fear indeed ^ve grow no wiser. 

How far, I wonder, have I brought down my own small 
particular story in my letters to you ? I doubt if I have 
told you that I went, in the middle of September, to that 
deserted seat of fashion and gaiety, Bath. The railroad 
brought the journey within my strength, and I had the 
reward of my effort by leaving in those warm waters a 
very troublesome gouty affection, which had kept me long 
in a state of sufferino^ and langruor. Since my return I 
have been labouring upon Addison with vigour, and am 
not quite vdthout hope of bringing it out before the end 
of our London spring, lasting till August. Mr. Hallam 



TO THE REV. DE. CHANNING. 431 

says it is time the public should be put in mind of him, 
for we have had no such writer since, and I find the same 
is the faith of all our high literati. One thing strikes me 
as quite unique in him. He was a great reformer of 
manners, yet never drew upon him the anger either of the 
high or the low — he improved mankind, and they did not 
persecute him. But perhaps I say wrongly mankind. 
His chief aim was to improve ivomankind, as the first step 
to amending society, and we were so good and so docile as 
to thank him even when he took the liberty of laughing 
at us. Had he begun with you 

Pray, had your Miss Sedgewick the like benevolent 
design in all the elaborate disparagement that she be- 
stows on the outside s and insides of us unhappy women 
of England, with our Queen at our head? The hardest 
morsel is her choosing to record, and thus to sanction, 
the sentence of one of the girls of her party, that a 
woman gentle and lovely could not be an Englishwoman. 
Such stuff is not worth talking about, but American 
women visiting England will certainly be sufferers by 
these demonstrations of national hatred. Your niece did 
not look like a hater ; I should be glad to be remembered 
to her. 

You and I have our own private treaty of amity, but 
this slave-trading is likely, I fear, to make ill-blood between 
our governments. 

I have been lately led to think of one of the greatest 
differences between education among us now and half a 
century ago — consisting in the introduction of Grerman 
literature. The study of this language is now become so 
nearly universal in good society, that twenty years hence 
young people will be saying with wonder, ' I do really sus- 
pect that neither that old Mr. Suchaone nor his wife know 
German.' Just as we used to say of some of our elders 
regarding French. I have made some young people stare 



432 LETTERS 

by telling them that, in my childhoo(i, Mr. William Taylor \ 
of Norwich, whose translation of Burger's Leonora was the ii 
spark which fired the muse of Scott, was quite as much 
wondered at for knowing G^erman, as a person would now i: 
be for a profound acquaintance with Euss. "VMiat are to 
be the effects of this new ingredient on the flavour of our 
lighter literature, I cannot clearly perceive ; certainly, if 3 
Carlyle be made the example of its influence on taste and 
style, nothing can be fancied more detestable. Mrs. Austin, 
on the contrary, is able to render a vast variety of German 
styles all into pure and flowing English, preserving at the 
same time something quite foreign in the subject-matter 
and turn of thought. There seems to be something more 
profoundly sentimental — more cordially affectionate in the ^ 
expressions of the G-ermans than is the tone with us, and 
all our travellers hold their demonstrations to be sincere 
and trustworthy. On this account we certainly love them i 
better than any other foreign people (it is to be con- 
sidered that we have no national rivalries with them); 
yet a want of polish, tact, refinement, is remarked, which 
often gives a tinge of burlesque both to their sublime and t; 
pathetic. Mr. Taylor has somewhere said that ' there is a 
too-onuchness in almost all German writers.' It seems as 
if the lightness of touch and perfection of taste of a Voltaire 
were gifts denied to their national mind. In one study 
their writers show a quite original spirit, combined with 
their well-known laboriousness — that of biblical criticism ; 
and it is in this that I apprehend they are producing the 
strongest effects on other nations. Their most startling 
paradoxes seem to have found a welcome among your 
divines, and they certainly have not been universally 
rejected here. At our universities, 'German Theology' 
is a word of fear and reproach, but those who, like Milman, 
would dive into Christian antiquities, well know that their 
main reliance must be on the guidance of German clown- 



TO TEE KEY. DR. CHANNING. 433 

diggers. Are they destined once more to produce a 
revolution in religion? Will new blood be poured into 
the old churches of Christendom from their veins ? Alas ! 
neither of us can expect to live long enough to see these 
questions solved by the event. How I long sometimes to 
peep into the yet unopened leaves of the book of fate, to 
read the destinies of nations in their moral relations ! It 
is not the doom of dynasties that I would learn. 

We have nothing new in literature, and in politics we are 
mutely awaiting the meeting of the new ministry's new par- 
liament. The grand trials of strength will be on the corn- 
laws and protective duties — momentous questions, no 
doubt ; but on which, if all who are unqualified to judge 
would be silent, there could be no popular cry. Every year 
there is more or less of distress in our manufacturing towns, 
because such are the productive powers of our gigantic 
machinery, that every year some markets are overstocked, 
and the mill-owners are obliged to hold their hands. But 
! this simple explanation never satisfies the sufferers > false 
i or partial causes are sought out : it is now the fault of 
your banking system, now of our own. Once it was the 
decrees of Bonaparte ; now it is our corn-laws. All Europe 
seems to be over-peopled, and the wages and condition of 
the working-classes sink in consequence — sink without help 
or hope of restoration. Sad truths, which in your new 
country you will know nothing of for many ages. Our 
magnificent colonies afford us, indeed, considerable relief, 
and I cannot repress some swellings of national pride, as I 
spread before me the map of the world, and realise it to 
myself, that the British Empire is the widest ever known 
to history. It is a proud feeling to dismiss an English 
MS. to the press, and think in how many zones and regions 
your thoughts will be read — the more reason they should 
be worthy and noble ones. 

I must not spare more time from my Addison, even to 



434 LETTERS 

chat with you, but I could not bear to let your last lie aj 
day longer unacknowledged. I grieve that you have been, 
so long a sufferer, and shall be very anxious to hear that: 
your strength returns completely. Be not too impatient i 
to resume your literary labours, notwithstanding our im-j 
patience for the work you have in preparation. It is in| 
vain to urge, while the body refuses to second the eager- 1 
ness of the mind. I now feel that a week of the applica-j 
tion of health performs more than months of languor. 
Do you recollect Mrs. Carter's pretty dialogue in verse | 
between Body and Soul, and their mutual reproaches ? 1 1 
always thought poor Body was the ill-used party. , 

Adieu. May all good attend you. 

Ever your sincere friend, 

Lucy Aikin. , 

No. 50. I 

Hampstead : Aug. 9, 1842. | 
My dear Friend — Tt grieves me to learn that illness has 
been the cause of your long silence ; but it is past, I hope, 
and if your summer be bright and balmy like ours, it will 
give you strength to support the rigours of the coming 
winter. But that you would come to recruit in our ; 
milder climate ! We should then soon exorcise that strange 
phantom of a petticoated man which your imagination 
has conjured up during your illness, and some demon has 
whispered you to call an Englishwoman. I am well per- 
suaded that you could have formed no such notion of us 
when you were here, although I believe you then saw but ^ 
little society, and that of an inferior kind. 

As to the very delicate subject of comparative beauty, our 
travellers attest that you have many very pretty girls ; so 
have we, and even Miss Sedgewick pronounces that ' the 
Englishwoman is magnificent from twenty to five-and-forty.' 
We are satisfied ; so let it rest. 



TO THE REV. DR. CIIANNING. 435 

With respect to our step, or stride, as you say, I have 
a little history to give you. Down to five-and-forty or 
fifty years ago, our ladies, tight-laced and * propped on 
French heels,' had a short mincing step, pinched figures, 
pale faces, weak nerves, much affectation, a delicate help- 
lessness, and miserable health. Physicians prescribed 
exercise, but to little purpose. Then came that event 
which is the beginning or end of everything — the French 
Eevolution. The Parisian women, amongst other re- 
straints, salutary or the contrary, emancipated themselves 
from their stays, and kicked off their petits talons. We 
followed the example, and, by way of improving upon it, 
learned to march of the drill-sergeant, mounted boots, 
and bid defiance to dirt and foul weather. We have now 
well-developed figures, blooming cheeks, active habits, 
firm nerves, natural and easy manners, a scorn of affecta- 
tion, and vigorous constitutions. If your fair daughters 
would also learn to step out, their bloom would be less 
transient, and fewer would fill untimely graves. I admit, 
indeed, some unnecessary inelegance in the step of our 
pedestrian fair ones ; but this does not extend to ladies of 
quality, or o^eal gentlewomen, who take the air chiefly in 
carriages, or on horseback. They walk with the same 
quiet grace that pervades all their deportment, and to 
which you have seen nothing similar or comparable. 
"WTien you mention our ' stronger gestures,' I know not 
what you mean. All Europe declares that we have no 
gesture. Madame de Stael ridiculed us as mere pieces of 
still life ; and of untravelled gentlewomen this is certainly 
true in general. All governesses proscribe it. Where it 
exists, it arises from personal character. I have seen it 
engaging when the offspring of a lively imagination and 
warm feelings, repulsive when the result of a keen temper 
or dictatorial assumption. Again, your charge of want 
of delicacy I cannot understand. The women of every 



436 LETTERS 

other European nation charge ns with prudery, and I 
really cannot conceive of a human being more unassailable ■. 
by just reproach on this head than a well-conducted I 
Englishwoman. We have indeed heard some whimsical ! 
stories of American damsels who would not for the world ' 
speak of the leg even of a table, or the back even of a 
chair ; and I do confess that we are not delicate or inde- 
licate to this point. But if you mean to allude to the , 
enormities of Frances Wright, or even to some of the i 

discussions of , I can only answer, we blush too. \ 

Be pleased to consider that you have yet seen in your r 
country none of our ladies of high rank ; and few of your 
people, excepting diplomatic characters, have had more i 
than very transient glimpses of them here, while we have < 
had the heads of your society with us. Now I must 
frankly tell you, in reference to your very unexpected : 
claim for your countrywomen of superior refinement, that i 
although I have seen several of them whose manners were i 
too quiet and retiring to give the least offence, I have ' 
neither seen nor heard of any who, even in the society of i 
our middle classes, were thought entitled to more than j 
this negative commendation — any who have become ' 
prominent without betraying gross ignorance of more 
than conventional good breeding. The very tone of 
voice, the accent and the choice of phrase, give us the 
impression of extreme inelegance. Patriot and staunch 
republican as you are, I think you must admit the a 
priori probability that the metropolis of the British 
empire, the first city in the world for size, for opulence, 
for diffusion of the comforts, accommodations, and luxuries 
of life, as well as for all the appliances of science, literature, 
and taste — the seat of a court unexcelled in splendour, 
and of an aristocracy absolutely imrivalled in wealth, in 
substantial power and dignity, and especially in mental 
cultivation of the most solid and most elegant kind — 



TO THE EEV. DR. CHANNING. 437 

would afford such a standard of graceful and finished 
manners as your state capitals can have no chance of 
coming up to. Further : it has been most truly observed 
that in every country it is the raotliers who give the tone 
both to morals and manners ; but with you the mothers 
are by your own account the toilers. Oppressed Y?ith the 
cares of house and children, they either retire from society 
into the bosom of their family, or leave at least the active 
and prominent parts in it to mere girls : and can you suppose 
that the art and science of good breeding, for such it is, 
will be likely to advance towards perfection when all who 
have attained such proficiency as experience can give 
resign the sway to giddy novices ? With us it is quite 
different. Young ladies do not come out till eighteen, 
and then their part is a very subordinate one. It is the 
matron who does the honours of her house, and supports 
conversation ; and her daughters pay their visits beneath 
her wing. Under wholesome restraint like this, the young 
best learn self-government. 'Sir,' said Dr. Parr, when 
provoked by the ill manners of a rich man who had been 
a spoiled child, *it is discipline that makes the scholar, 
discipline that makes the gentleman, and it is the want of 
discipline that makes you what you are.' 

One of your young women showed her taste and breeding 
by asking an English lady if she had seen 'Victoria;' and 
I must mention that Miss Sedgewick has thought proper 
to describe the first and greatest lady in the ivorld as ' a 
plain little body,' adding, ' ordinary is the word for her.' 

It was no woman luckily, but your Mr. D , who had 

the superlative conceit and impertinence to express his 
surprise to a friend of mine at finding so much good 
society in London. Now I think I have given you 
enough for one letter. 

Let me thank you very gratefully for your ' Duty of the 
Free States.' We ought all to be grateful to you as one 



438 " LETTEES 

of the most earnest and powerful pleaders for peace 
between our two countries. I trust there is now good 
hope of the settlement of all our disputes. But your 
man-owners may as well give up all hope of our lending 
our hands to the recovery of their chattels ; we shall go 
to war sooner, I can tell them. Your piece gave me 
much new information respecting the obligations of the free 
states in connection with slavery ; they are more onerous 
than I thought. You must carry your point as to the 
district of Columbia at all risks, and I apprehend you I 
will do so as soon as your people can be brought earnestly ! 
to will it — a state of public feeling which seems to be 1 
advancing. After our victory over slave-trade and slavery, 
no good cause is ever to be despaired of, not even although ' 
many of its champions may show themselves rash, un- i 
charitable, violent. Eeason, justice, and humanity must ' 
condescend to own that they need the service of the ' 
passions to lead the forlorn hope in their holiest crusades. ' 
Your lively delineations of the Southerns and the Northerns ' 
struck me very forcibly. The contrast is just what we { 
should draw between English and Irish. Difference of 
climate may in great degree account for this in your 
case, but it can have no part in ours. We should ascribe 
it to ditt'erence of race, had not the original English settlers ^ 
in Ireland grown into such a likeness of the old Celtic ^ 
stock. Nothing more inscrutable than the causes of 
national character. Climate certainly modifies the original 
type. Thus the picture which you draw of American ' 
women in your letter bore much resemblance, I thought, 
to the Creoles of our islands. But surely the same 
character cannot apply to the women of both North and " 
South any more than to the men, for, independently of all 
other causes, the presence or absence of domestic slaves '] 
must modify every detail of domestic, and of course of 
feminine, life. 



TO THE REV. DR. CHANNING. 439 

We have a new book which, if it fall in your way, 
will surely interest you. It is the ' Life of Oliver Hey- 
wood,' composed chiefly from his own journals by the Eev. 
Joseph Hunter. He was one of the two thousand ejected 
Presbyterian ministers of Charles II.'s time. After he 
was silenced, so far from holding his tongue, he passed the 
rest of his life, more than thirty years, in assiduous, almost 
incessant preaching, as a kind of missionary. His sphere 
of action was the wild mountainous tract along the borders 
of Lancashire and the West Eiding of Yorkshire, then 
thinly sprinkled with pastoral villages, small towns en- 
gaged in woollen manufacture, and seats of rustic gentry 
— now a region of factories and steam-engines, mostly 
deserted by its hereditary gentry, but swarming with 
population. Oliver Heywood founded many congregations, 
and was indeed one of the chief fathers of Protestant 
dissent in all that country ; it was a productive soil, and 
the seed sown by him has brought forth abundantly. The 
wealthy descendants of the poor and rude people whom he 
penetrated with his own profound sense of practical re- 
ligion, his own stern hostility to the claims of 'poiuer in 
the concerns of conscience, and his defiance, his scorn of 
persecution, have not yet quite lost the spirit of their 
forefathers, although they have mitigated their gloomy 
austerity and Calvinistic faith. Many of them are at this 
time the zealous and liberal supporters of the Unitarian 
congregations in Bolton, Manchester, Leeds, HaHfax, &c. 
The picture of manners is very striking. I doubt if any- 
thing has been published which brings so close those rigid 
men whose lives might be called one long religious service 
—with whom to fast and pray appeared the great ends 
for which mankind were created. The intensity of their 
bigotry was frightful, and it was chiefly exerted against 
their brother sectaries. When they are themselves under 
persecution, one is disposed to respect and admire them ; 



440 LETTERS TO THE REY. DR. CHAINING. 

but yet it is impossible to forget that they are quite ready 
to do as much, and more also, to all who differ from them 
if ever their own turn should come round again. You 
must see the book. I will try to beg you a copy of my 
friend James Heywood, one of two wealthy and most worthy 
brothers, at whose desire and cost this life of their ancient 
kinsman has been written. Mr. Hunter is in every part 
thorough master of his subject, and his own portion is 
full of curious and valuable matter. 

This reminds me of your Mr. Savage, with whom I had 
an interesting conference. The spirit of ^ Old Mortality ' 
seems to have migrated into his form. There is something in 
what Carlyle keeps repeating about real men, earnest men. 
It is they alone who stamp their image into coming ages. 
They ! I should have said you. 

My * Addison,' a theme on which there is no room for 
anything very earnest^ though I am real as far as I go, 
proceeds at a very leisurely pace, but I hope to be ready 
for the next book season. I have been fortunate in obtain- 
ing much new matter, especially some very agreeable 
unpublished letters from the lineal representative of his i 
executor Tickell. 

Ever your sincere friend, 

LUCT AlKIN. 



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